J-f.2^1,  bS, 


Srom  t^e  feifitarj^  of 

(profeBBor  TJ?iffiam  ^enrj  (Bteen 

Q^equeat^e^  6^  ^im  fo 
t^e  feifirar^  of 

(princefon  t^eofogicdf  ^eminarjj 


FOUR  BIBLE  STUDIES 


SHAMELESSNESS 
REVENGE 

PRAYER 

FIDELITY 


BY  / 

JOHN  H.  OSBOENE 


NEW   YORK 

A.    C.    ARMSTRONG    &    SON 

51  East  Tenth  Street 

1896 


Copyright,  1896,  by 
JOHN   H.  OSBORNE 


Press  of  J.  J.  Little  &  Co. 
Astor  Place,  New  York 


PREFACE. 

It  is  with  great  diffidence,  in  view  of  the  un- 
broken accord  in  interpretation  of  the  long  Hne  of 
expositors  hitherto,  that  three  of  these  studies  are 
now  offered  as  new  and  better  exegeses  of  three  of 
the  parables  of  our  Lord.  If  from  these,  under 
guidance  of  the  Spirit,  some  of  the  deep  things  of 
God  shall  appear  as  more  easily  to  be  fathomed,  or 
if  any  suggestion  has  been  furnished  tending  to 
clearer  apprehension  of  the  passages  treated  of, 
the  purpose  of  this  publication  will  have  been  fully 
answered.  For,  in  our  daily  search  of  the  Script- 
ures, as  in  the  daily  test  of  our  inner  spiritual  life, 
the  constant  and  reverent  inquiry  ev^er  should  be, 
whether  these  things  are  so  ?  and  in  both  cases,  not 
counting  ourselves  to  have  yet  fully  apprehended, 
the  faithful  endeavour  should  be  to  reach  forward 
to  the  things  that  are  before. 

It  will  be  seen  that,  as  the  parables  discussed  in 
the  first  two  studies  both  bear  upon  two  different 
phases  of  the  subject  of  prayer,  the  third  study 
would  naturally  follow  them,  in  order  that  the 
three  together  might  set  forth  a  more  full  and  com- 
prehensive (though  by  no  means  an  exhaustive) 
treatment  of  the  whole  subject  of  prayer. 

J.  11.  O. 

Auburn,  N.  Y. 


CONTENTS. 

Shamelessness 1 

Revenge 22 

Prayer 47 

Fidelity 63 


SHAMELESSNESS. 

Luke  xi.  1-10. 

The  interpretation  of  this  parable,  The  Friend  at 
Midnight,  now  generally  accepted,  is :  that  the 
host,  who,  after  receiving  his  travelling  friend  at 
midnight,  goes  to  his  neighbour's  house  to  ask  for 
food,  represents  the  praying  disciple ;  and  the 
householder  roused  up  by  him  represents  our  Heav- 
enly Father;  but  interpreters  are  careful  to  state 
that  there  is  a  difference  as  to  the  methods  of 
representation  in  these  two  portions  of  the  parable  ; 
the  host,  as  he  asks  for  bread  is  like  unto  and 
stands  for  the  praying  Christian  ;  but  the  house- 
holder is  not  like  our  Heavenly  Father.  In  the 
case  of  the  host,  the  lesson  is  said  to  be  given  by 
way  of  likeness,  but  in  the  other  case  it  is  said  to 
be  given  by  w^ay  of  contrast.  It  is  allowed  that  the 
neighbour  is  like  God  in  giving  "as  man}^  loaves 
as  he  needeth,"  but  that  he  is  unlike  Him  in  the 
exhibition  of  a  morose  and  crabbed  nature. 

Here  we  make  the  first  issue  and  claim  that  it  is 
not  according  to  the  functions  of  a  parable,  nor  a 
legitimate  exercise  of  its  true  methods,  to  teach  by 
contrast  or  dissimilarity,  but  always  by  likeness  or 
similarity.  It  is  a  napapoXt],  a  "  casting  along- 
side "  the  objects  or  truths  to  be  illustrated,  the 
objects  that  are  to  effect  and  make  clear  such  illus- 
tration.    The  attributes  and  qualities  of  the  divine 


2  Four  Bible  Studies. 

and  spiritual  are  to  be  set  forth  and  explained  by 
natural  objects  in  which  there  are  qualities,  func- 
tions, and  sometimes  attributes  bearing  a  likeness, 
ethically,  to  the  objects,  persons,  or  truths  of  a  spir- 
iti  \  nature.  "  Know  ye  not  this  parable,  and  how, 
th.  .,  will  ye  know  all  parables?  "  was  the  reply  of 
our  Lord  when  asked  for  a  solution  of  the  parable 
of  The  Sower ;  as  if  the  interpretation  and  appli- 
cation of  a  parable  were  so  plain  and  easy  that 
every  one  having  ears  to  hear  and  eyes  to  see 
might  understand  it  in  its  several  parts,  and  might 
readily  know  to  what  truth  or  object  each  part 
was  intended  to  refer  by  reason  of  its  spiritual  or 
ethical  likeness  to  that  truth  or  object. 

Thereupon  Jesus  gives  the  explanation  of  the 
parable.  The  sower  is  the  Son  of  Man,  the  seed  is 
the  Word  of  God,  the  fowls  by  the  wayside  repre- 
sent Satan  taking  away  the  seed  so  it  might  not 
bear  fruit ;  the  stony  places  are  the  stony  hearts 
w^hereon  the  seed  taking  root  will  flourish  for  a 
short  time  and  then  be  scorched  up  in  the  heat  of 
tribulation  and  persecution  ;  the  thorns  that  choke 
and  render  unfruitful  the  Word  are  the  cares  of  this 
world,  deceitfulness  of  riches,  and  lusts  of  other 
thino^s;  the  o^ood  o^round  is  the  o'ood  and  honest 
heart,  that  nourishes  the  good  seed  until  it  brings 
forth  most  bountifully.  In  this  exegesis  given  by 
our  Lord  there  is  a  plain,  direct,  and  self-evident 
likeness  between  each  truth  to  be  illustrated  and 
the  object  in  nature  that  illustrates  it.  The  sower 
is  *'  placed  alongside"  the  Son  of  Man,  and  a  like- 
ness appears  at  once ;  He  is  in  action  perfectly  and 
directly  represented  by  the  sower ;  so  also,  when 


Shmnelessness,  3 

the  fowls  of  the  air  are  "  placed  alongside  "  Satan, 
the  likeness  in  action  is  easily  apparent,  and  there 
is  no  dissimilarit}^  or  contrast  between  tliem.  This 
same  line  of  remark  will  apply  to  the  other  mem- 
bers of  the  parable,  the  stony  ground,  the  thor..y, 
and  the  good  ground. 

Thus  is  the  true  nature  of  every  parable  set  forth 
by  Jesus  Himself  ;  always  illustrating  by  similarity, 
never  by  contrast;  always  by  likeness,  never  by 
unlikeness.  Another  fine  example  of  this  method 
is  given  by  the  Lord  in  His  explanation  of  "•  The 
Tares  of  the  Field  "  (Matt.  xiii.  37-43).  There  the 
sower,  the  good  seed,  the  field,  the  enemy,  the  har- 
vest, and  the  reapers,  all  and  each,  stand  for  charac- 
ter in  persons,  or  qualities  in  things,  of  the  king- 
dom of  God,  and  the  acts  of  the  persons  and  the 
results  following  the  operations  in  the  harvest  field 
of  nature  are  types  and  emblems  of  similar  acts 
and  results  in  the  spiritual  and  heavenly  world. 
Thus  every  parable  must,  by  virtue  of  its  very  con- 
stitution as  a  parable,  operate  on  direct  lines,  and 
ofl'er  and  bring  out  all  its  lessons  on  points  of  agree- 
ment, and  not  of  difference.  So  was  it  in  all  other 
parables  uttered  by  our  Master ;  the  kingdom  of 
Heaven  is  like  to  a  grain  of  mustard  seed ;  is  like 
unto  leaven  hid  in  meal ;  is  like  unto  treasure  hid 
in  a  field ;  is  hke  unto  a  merchantman  seeking 
goodly  pearls  ;  is  like  unto  a  man  that  is  an  house- 
holder ;  is  like  unto  a  certain  king  who  made  a 
marriage  for  his  son ;  is  like  unto  ten  virgins ;  is 
as  a  man  travelling  in  a  far  country.  In  fact,  the 
only  two  parables  that  have  ever  been  made  by 
expositors  to  teach  thus  wrongfully  by  contrast  and 


4  Four  Bible  Studies. 

unlikeness  are  this  one  and  that  of  the  Unjust 
Judge. 

It  cannot  therefore  be  admitted  that  the  neigh- 
bour in  this  parable  can  represent  our  Father  by 
contrast,  but  he  must  represent  Him  by  similarity  ; 
and  the  qualities  in  the  character  of  the  neighbour 
and  his  acts  must  and  do,  for  the  purposes  of  the 
parable,  set  forth  like  qualities  and  stand  for  sim- 
ilar actions,  the  outcome  of  the  purposes  and  plans 
of  our  Heavenly  Father.  If,  at  this  point,  the  de- 
vout reader  is  ready  to  lay  down  this  paper  and 
exclaim,  "  Surely  God  is  not  the  crabbed,  morose, 
and  unlovely  character  personated  in  the  neigh- 
bour," we  can  say  in  reply,  "  Have  patience,  and  we 
may  perhaps  help  you  to  see  that  the  neighbour  is 
not  of  such  character  at  all." 

Taking  up  now  the  second  issue  on  which  we 
differ  and  dissent  from  the  received  exposition  of 
the  parable,  in  all  the  exegeses  there  is  one  propo- 
sition not  expressed  in  terms,  but  always  tacitly 
assumed  and  taken  for  granted ;  and  out  of  this 
proposition,  falsely  assumed  as  a  fact,  and  which 
we  will  show  to  have  no  reasonable  basis,  has 
been  developed  the  false  and  unnatural  interpreta- 
tion commonly  accepted  as  the  onlv  valid  one. 
That  assumed  proposition  is  that  the  traveller, 
arriving  at  midnight,  was  hungry  and  needed  food, 
or  that  it  was  best  and  proper  for  him,  whether 
hungry  or  not,  to  take  food  at  that  hour  before 
lying  down  to  rest  till  morning.  But  there  is 
nothing  to  show  that  he  Avas  hungry,  for  the 
natural  presumption  is  that  he  took  his  evening 
meal  at  the  regular  hour  before  starting  on   his 


SJiamelessness.  5 

journe}^ ;  he  makes  no  plea  of  hunger  and  does  not 
ask  for  bread ;  yet,  even  if  hungry,  would  it  have 
been  conducive  to  his  health  or  comfort  to  take 
a  meal  at  the  midnight  hour  ? 

The  physical  constitution  of  man  is  the  same  in 
all  ages ;  we  may  therefore  ask  the  question  of 
ourselves  as  appropriate  for  the  solution  of  this 
case,  What  would  I  do  on  arriving  at  my  destina- 
tion, having  before  the  start  taken  the  usual  even- 
ing meal,  and  then  travelling  by  rail  or  stage  till 
midnight?  I  have  put  such  a  question  to  physi- 
cians and  commercial  travellers,  and  they,  speak- 
ing the  one  from  knowledge  of  physiology  and  the 
other  from  practical  experience,  all  agreed  that  the 
sensible  and  healthful  part  for  the  traveller  Avould 
be  to  go  to  bed,  whether  hungry  or  not,  without 
taking  food ;  the  physician  Avould  say  that  the 
stomach,  having  digested  the  evening  meal,  should 
be  allowed  its  usual  rest  durino^  the  remainino^  hours 
of  the  night,  that  if  roused  and  compelled  to  fur- 
ther action,  it  must  call  upon  the  brain  for  an 
unwonted  supply  of  nerve  force,  and  the  brain, 
thus  kept  active,  cannot  get  the  rest  it  should 
have  in  sleep ;  the  commercial  traveller  confirms 
this  by  his  statement  that  food  taken  at  that  un- 
seasonable hour  keeps  him  tossing  and  restless  all 
the  remainino^  hours  of  the  nio^ht,  so  that  mornintr 
finds  him  worn  out  and  unrefreshed.  We  must, 
then,  consider  as  altogether  unfounded  the  assump- 
tion that,  even  by  an  overstrained  rule  of  hospi- 
tality, the  traveller  should  properly  have  had 
anything  offered  him  at  that  time. 

A  volume  lately  published  by  Canon  11.  13.  Tris- 


6  Four  Bihle  Studies. 

tarn,  entitled  "  Eastern  Customs  in  Bible  Lands," 
furnishes,  in  a  chapter  headed  "  Journeying  in  the 
East,"  some  very  useful  information  ou  this  point : 
"  The  requisites  for  an  Eastern  journey  are  few  and 
simple — scrip,  purse,  and  shoes ;  though  now,  when 
the  country  is  not  under  the  settled  rule  which  pre- 
vailed in  the  daj^s  of  the  Romans,  a  weapon  of 
some  kind  or  at  least  a  stout  cudgel  must  be 
added.  The  equipment  was  the  same  many  ages 
before  that  period  :  for  Homer  (Odyssey,  17 — 197) 
describes  Ulysses  as  travelling  with  a  purse,  a  bag, 
and  a  staff,  using  the  same  word  for  scrip  or  bag 
which  occurs  in  the  New  Testament.  The  purse 
is  a  small  leather  bag  hung  round  the  neck,  under 
the  shirt,  by  country  folk,  but  concealed  in  the  folds 
of  the  voluminous  girdle  Avorn  by  townsmen.  It 
contains  the  owner's  money  and  other  valuables, 
especially  the  signet  ring  so  treasured  by  every 
Arab,  who  always  carries  it  in  this  purse.  The 
scrip  is  a  bag  of  larger  dimensions,  slung  across  the 
shoulder  over  the  outer  garment,  generall}^  made 
of  leather,  but,  in  the  case  of  the  poorest,  of  flexible 
matting,  in  which  provision  for  the  journey,  usually 
olives,  dried  figs,  and  thin  barley  cakes,  rolled  up  or 
folded  square,  is  carried." 

It  is  thus  clear  that  this  traveller  in  our  parable 
is  to  be  regarded  as  already,  and  before  his  arrival 
at  the  house  of  his  host,  provided  with  any  needed 
loaves  contained  in  the  "scrip"  he  carried.  There 
is  no  intimation  that  he  was  furnished  differently 
or  with  aught  less  than  what  travellers  were  accus- 
tomed to  carry  with  them  ;  nor  are  we  to  take  it 
for  granted  that  the  fact  of  the  host  asking  the 


&7iamelessness.  7 

neighbour  for  bread,  of  itself  implied  the  absence  of 
that  article  from  the  traveller's  scrip.  Our  Lord 
sets  forth  this  man,  the  traveller,  and  in  fact  all  the 
characters  in  all  His  parables,  as  acting  under 
natural  motives  and  according  to  the  ordinary  con- 
dition and  mode  of  life  of  each  of  them.* 

We  can  now  see  that  the  host  develops  a  charac- 
ter entirely  different  from  that  usually  accorded 
him  ;  for  it  turns  out  that  the  request  he  made  of 
the  neighbour  for  the  loaves  was  not  a  reasonable 
one  for  a  necessary  article,  but  the  very  opposite. 
The  question  therefore  arises.  Why  should  the  host 
do  so  unreasonable  and  unnecessary  an  act,  and 
what  was  his  motive  in  doing  it?  The  answer  is 
ready  at  hand  in  the  one  word  that  characterizes 
his  action,  ocvaidlav,  shamelessness ;  for  it  was 
no  motive  of  benevolence  that  led  him  to  the 
neio'hbours  house,  but  a  vain  wish  to  make  for  him- 
self  a  certain  kind  of  reputation  with  the  guest  and 
his  neighbour  and  any  others  who  would  be  sure  to 
hear  of  the  act  he  now  proposed. 

Hospitality  was  accounted  as  one  of  the  cardinal 
and  almost  saving  virtues  of  his  time  and  his  peo- 
ple ;  he  would  make  a  great  show  of  zeal  in  fulfill- 
ing its  duties  on  any  occasion  that  might  offer; 
so    he   goes   with    ostentatious   and    inconsiderate 

*  In  the  exposition  of  this  parable  by  the  Siniday  School 
T'imes,  in  its  issue  of  February  29,  189G,  the  following  note 
is  contributed  by  Rev.  William  Ewing  :  '"Now  the  laws  of 
(Eastern)  hospitality  lay  it  down  that  he  who  arrives  after  sun- 
set may  be  sent  to  sleep  without  supper  ;  that  is  to  say,  arriving 
at  midnight,  he  had  a  right  to  shelter,  but  none  to  food.  So  this 
man  acted  within  the  understanding  of  hospitable  duty  in  refus- 
ing to  be  disturbed  at  that  hour  of  the  night." 


8  Four  Bible  Studies, 

eagerness  to  the  neighbour,  regardless  of  the  fact 
that  he  is  asking  for  what  is  not  at  all  needed,  and 
reckless  also  of  the  outrage  he  is  committing  against 
all  the  kindly  and  considerate  feelings  of  his  neigh- 
bour. He  had  no  plea  of  hunger  from  the  traveller 
to  urge;  so  the  onl}^  reason  he  can  give  is  one  that 
relates  to  himself.  "  I  have  nothing  to  set  before 
him";  it  is  the  superserviceable  "setting  before" 
that  constitutes  his  real  motive,  and  not  any  desire 
to  do  his  travelling  friend  a  benefit;  he  would 
have  all  the  world  know  how  zealous  he  is  to  fulfil 
the  duties  of  a  host  at  all  times,  even  at  the  mid- 
night hour.  "I  have  nothing  to  set  before  him" 
is  the  specious  reason  given  for  the  demand,  and  it 
is  left  to  the  friend  to  infer,  what  the  man  would 
not  declare  outright,  that  there  is  a  real  need  for 
the  three  loaves.  Yery  clearly  this  man  Avas  of 
that  blatant,  shallow-minded  sort,  not  sparsely  met 
with  in  Oriental  lands,  who  are  ever  thrusting  for- 
ward their  fine  virtues  and  moral  attainments  "  to 
be  seen  of  men "  ;  they  are  constantly  bringing 
them  to  the  front  on  dress  parade,  and  are  seem- 
ingly haunted  by  the  fear  that  all  the  good  traits 
of  their  character  Avill  be,  by  the  mass  of  men, 
overlooked  and  forgotten. 

The  neighbour,  however,  is  not  moved  by  the 
appeal;  he  may  suspect  it  has  no  genuine  basis, 
but  at  least  he  knows  his  friend  of  old,  and  under- 
stands his  reckless  spirit  and  brazen  ways  ;  he  gives 
at  first  a  prompt  refusal ;  a  request  perfectly  rea- 
sonable at  a  reasonable  hour  deserves  no  attention, 
no  consideration  now ;  no  plea  of  a  benevolent 
motive  has  been  made  to  him,  and  this  display  of 


8hamelessness.  9 

shamelessness  by  his  friend  calls  for  no  act  of 
benevolence  or  good-will  in  return ;  it  is  quite 
proper  for  him  to  return  a  selfish  response  to  the 
selfish  request,  M//  ^A.oL  uoTrovb  Ttdfjsxs,  "  Do  not 
bring  troubles  upon  me."  The  rendering  in  the 
Authorized  and  Ke vised  versions  of  these  four 
Greek  words  by  the  three  English  Avords  "  trouble 
me  not,"  is  a  very  inadequate  translation  ;  this 
phrase,  nonov  ncxpex^iy,  is  thus  mistranslated  not 
only  in  this  parable  and  that  of  the  Unjust  Judge, 
but  also  at  Matt.  xxvi.  10  and  at  Galatians  vi.  17 ; 
in  Matthew,  our  Lord  in  rebuke  of  the  unjust  criti- 
cisms spoken  against  that  Mary  who  poured  the 
ointment  on  His  feet,  exclaimed,  "Why  do  you 
bring  trouble  upon  the  woman  ? "  in  anticipation 
of  the  wrong  and  wicked  slanders  that  might  be 
sent  forth  about  her  from  envious  tongues,  to  injure 
her  good  name  and  cast  a  cloud  upon  her  fair 
character ;  these  were  the  ''  troubles  "  such  words 
as  they  had  spoken  would  "  bring  upon"  her,  and 
He  then  and  there  interposed  in  her  behalf,  declar- 
ing that  the  account  of  this  act  of  hers  should  form 
part  of  the  imperishable  record  of  His  own  life, 
and  thus  the  memory  of  it  would  be  preserved  to 
the  remotest  ages  of  the  world. 

Paul's  adjuration  in  his  letter  to  the  Galatians, 
Tov  XoiTtov  KOTTOvi  f.101  /.i}/d£i?  TtapsxiTGjy  was 
made  in  view  of  the  questions  about  circumcision 
that  had  come  up,  and  troubled  the  disciples  while 
he  was  staying  in  Antioch,  Lystra,  and  Derbe,  as 
they  are  stated  in  Acts  xv.  and  xvi. ;  so,  in 
writing  to  the  Galatians,  he  admonishes  them  of 
the  futility  of  such  questions,  raised  as  they  are  by 


10  Four  Bible  Studies. 

those  who  "  desire  to  make  a  fair  show  in  the 
flesh  "  and  that  they  may  escape  "  persecution  for 
the  cross  of  Christ."  Circumcision  is  nothinof,  but 
a  newly  created  mind  and  heart  are  everything ; 
these  zealots  for  outward  conformity  do  not  keep 
the  law  ;  their  only  glory  is  in  the  numbers  of  their 
followers  ;  but  Paul's  glory  is  in  that  symbol  of 
shame,  the  Cross ;  let  no  man  now  wantonly 
attempt  to  bring  troubles  any  more  upon  him ; 
the  welts  upon  his  body  yet  remaining  from  the 
jailer's  lash  at  Philippi  were  the  ffriy^ara  to  testify 
of  him  that  he  was  the  Lord's  bondman  ;  all  ques- 
tions about  customs  and  requirements  under  the 
old  law  were  obsolete,  and  agitation  of  them  in  the 
churches  could  only  bring  useless  trouble  upon  Paul. 
To  the  careful  student  of  the  Greek,  therefore, 
this  must  appear  as  the  only  true  and  adequate 
rendering  of  the  four  words  of  adjuration  as  Luke 
has  written  them  in  this  parable ;  they  mean  much 
more  than  to  say :  "  Do  not  bother  me,"  or  "  Stop 
this  worrying,"  for  they  signify  an  actual  trouble 
that  is  to  be  brought  on  the  neighbour  through 
compliance  with  the  demand  of  his  friend.  If  our 
Lord  meant  that  the  former  was  onlj^  protesting 
against  a  mere  teasing  by  the  host,  there  are  three 
or  four  single  verbs  anj^  one  of  which  He  would 
have  employed  to  express  this,  and  with  far  greater 
accuracy  than  b}^  this  phrase  of  four  words 
which  He  has  put  in  the  mouth  of  the  house- 
holder. See  Luke  vii.  6,  viii.  -19  ;  Acts  xvii.  8 ; 
Gal.  i.  7,  V.  10. 

Thus  the  neighbour's  thought  is  not  that  he  is 
personally  pestered,  irritated,  and  provoked ;  but 


S7iamelessness.  \  \ 

he  means  that  the  host's  irrational  conduct  will 
"  bring  troubles "  as  its  result ;  and  we  can  well 
understand  what  those  troubles  would  be;  the 
noise  of  unlocking  and  opening  the  door,  and  the 
drawing  off  from  his  children  the  covering  that  is 
over  both  him  and  them  will  awaken  them,  and  so 
the  cold,  the  noise,  and  the  voice  to  them  strano*e 
at  this  hour  in  their  half-awakened  state,  all  in  the 
deep  darkness  of  the  night,  must  set  his  children  in 
great  fright  with  crying  and  screams  and  calls  for 
"  Papa"  ;  but  expostulation  is  of  no  avail  with  the 
shameless  and  reckless  petitioner;  the  neighbour 
quickly  perceives  this,  and  promptly  decides  that 
the  easiest  way  out  of  this  predicament  is  to  get  up 
at  once,  give  the  man  his  loaves,  and  send  him  off 
as  soon  as  possible  ;  he  will  not  stop  to  count  them 
in  the  darkness,  but  will  be  sure  to  give  him  more 
than  he  asks  for,  so  that  he  will  not  return.  We 
need  not  assume  that  in  doing  this  he  is  actuated 
by  the  least  ill-will  or  by  any  thought  of  unkind- 
ness  ;  his  conduct  is  simply  governed  by  and  suited 
to  the  facts  of  the  case ;  while  he  well  understands 
the  pleader's  motive,  he  does  not  indulge  in  recrimi- 
nation or  passion  ;  he  calmly  and  practically  acts 
according  to  the  circumstances  of  the  moment,  and 
merely  in  a  Avay  to  avoid  the  "  troubles."  The 
picture  commonly  drawn  of  this  scene,  repre- 
senting the  host  as  standing  without  for  quite  a 
time  and  making  repeated  requests,  using  "  impor- 
tunity," is  not  the  true  one  ;  importunity  is  the  last 
thing  the  neighbour  can  allow  ;  it  is  the  one  event 
of  all  others  to  be  prevented  or  arrested,  for  the 
longer  the  importunity  the  greater  the  ''  troubles  "  ; 


12  Four  Bible  Studies. 

it  must  be  cut  off  short ;  so  he  rises  at  once  and 
stops  it  by  giving  the  man  what  he  wants. 

The  riofht  renderino:  of  the  Greek  word  avaidiai^ 
is  not  "  importunity,"  but  shamelessness ;  the  very 
composition  of  the  word  indicates  its  meaning, 
"without  shame."  And  here  we  must  come  to 
the  conclusion  that  the  translators  of  the  Authorized 
version  nearly  three  hundred  years  ago  adopted 
this  wrong  word,  importunity,  as  a  necessary  con- 
sequence of  their  wrong  interpretation  of  the 
parable ;  the  error  of  it  began  then,  for,  wrongly 
assuming  that  the  host  was  in  the  right  with  his 
petition,  they  could  not  see  wherein  he  was  shame- 
less ;  so  they  had  to  make  a  new  meaning  for  the 
word;  in  this  way  it  undoubtedly  was  that  the  wrong 
exegesis  of  the  first  part  of  this  parable  determined 
and  made  necessary  the  translation  of  this  word 
into  "  importunity,"  and  this  meaning  was  adopted 
also  in  order  to  preserve  a  consistent  exegesis  in  its 
latter  part.  Having  been  mistranslated  in  our  Eng- 
lish Bibles  for  two  hundred  and  eighty  years,  it  must 
now  perforce  appear  in  our  Greek  lexicons  as  one 
of  the  meanings  of  avaidiai^ ,  but  it  should  not  be 
forgotten  that  it  was  the  wrono^  translation  that 
created  the  wrong  dictionary  meaning,  and  not 
the  dictionary  meaning  that  made  the  wrong 
translation ;  the  Revised  version  has  simply  fol- 
lowed in  the  same  line  of  error  {vide  Alford  m  loco). 

It  must  be  believed  that  our  Master  exercised  at 
least  ordinary  care  and  precision  in  the  use  of 
words,  and  that  He  would  not  employ  any  terms  in 
His  discourse  except  such  as  would  convey  His 
thought  accurately   and  with  definite   clearness ; 


Shameless  iiess.  13 

therefore,  if  He  had  meant  only  "importunity  "  in 
this  case,  He  would  have  spoken  a  more  appropriate 
word  than  dv  aid  lav  ,•  or,  if  He  uttered  this  parable 
in  Aramaic,  then  Luke,  in  selecting  the  right  word 
in  Greek  for  the  purpose  of  this  record,  did  cer- 
tainly take  pains  to  give  us  this  as  the  one  word 
justly  and  accurately  corresponding  to  the  Aramaic 
word  Jesus  had  used  ;  for  if  He  had  really  intended 
"  importunity  "  there  are  Greek  words  that  would 
have  much  better  convej^ed  His  thought,  such  as 
some  of  the  compounds  of  aiTeoo^  as  TtpoGairyjaiv, 
or  TtapairijaiVy  or  STtaiTjjffiv.  But  He  used  a 
Avord  which,  both  by  general  usage  of  that  time 
and  by  derivation,  bore  the  meaning  "  without 
shame."  We  have  endeavoured  to  show  that  the 
term  "  shamelessness "  applies  not  simply  to  the 
act  of  asking,  but  also  to  the  character  of  the  host, 
and  to  his  conduct  as  the  natural  exhibition  of  his 
heedless  selfishness,  and  that  the  neighbour's  knowl- 
edge of  this  trait,  and  thus  his  ready  appreciation 
of  the  uselessness  of  remonstrance,  prompted  him 
to  quickly  give  all  and  more  than  was  asked  for. 
So  that  to  put  importunity  in  place  of  shameless- 
ness  is  absolutely  to  reverse  the  parable,  to  turn  it 
around  and  make  it  teach  just  the  opposite  of  what 
it  does  teach. 

And  now,  under  our  right  exegesis,  what  is  the 
application  of  the  parable?  Jesus  himself  gives  it 
in  the  next  sentence — "Ask  and  ye  shall  receive, 
seek  and  ye  shall  find,  knock  and  it  shall  be  opened 
unto  you ;  for  every  one  that  asketh  receiveth,  and 
he  that  seeketh  findeth,  and  to  him  that  knocketh 
it  shall  be  opened."     Here  are  simply  six  repeti- 


14  Four  Bible  Studies. 

tions  of  tlie  same  thought,  and  there  is  nothing 
more  in  them  than  the  assurance,  "  Your  prayers 
shall  be  answered,  your  prayers  shall  be  answered," 
six  times  repeated  and  variously  given  to  make 
it  tremendously  emphatic,  and  as  if  our  dear  Sav- 
iour would  impress  the  fact  on  our  memories  with 
such  force  and  vividness  that  it  might  never  be  for- 
gotten. Much  paper  has  been  spoiled  in  the  attempt 
to  set  forth  the  supposed  figurative  meanings  of 
these  six  phrases,  but  such  expositions  are  to  be 
discredited  as  overstrained,  far-fetched,  and  at  va- 
riance with  that  direct  and  simple  clearness  in 
method  which  always  constitutes  the  power  and 
charm  of  Jesus'  teaching ;  we  are  simply  to  accept 
them  in  their  plain  intent  and  meaning,  and  as 
evidence  of  the  intense  earnestness  of  Jesus  in 
assuring  us  that  our  prayers  can  never  fail  of  an 
answer.  These  two  verses,  Luke  xi.  9,  10,  are  to 
be  cherished  as  next  in  value  to  John  iii.  16  ;  the 
latter  is  precious  to  the  penitent  seeking  for  pardon 
and  salvation,  but  the  former  is  the  golden  signet- 
ring  given  into  the  hand  of  the  redeemed  by  which 
he  makes  claim  to  the  royal  heritage  pledged  in 
the  words,  "  If  ye  abide  in  me  and  my  words  abide 
in  you,  ye  shall  ask  what  ye  will,  and  it  shall  be 
done  unto  you." 

But  there  is  another  lesson  to  be  drawn  from  the 
parable.  God  sees  our  thoughts  and  knows  our 
motives,  whatever  our  acts  and  words  may  be.  The 
host,  rousing  up  his  friend,  was  not  at  heart  a  bad 
character;  he  was  vain,  fond  of  displaying  his  vir- 
tues, inconsiderate  of  others,  selfish  and  persistent 
where  his  own  advantage  was  concerned ;  but,  in 


Shamelessness.  1 5 

all,  he  was  honest  and  sincere ;  he  did  not  pretend 
that  the  traveller  was  hungry,  but  f rankl}^  gave  the 
reason  for  his  petition  as  one  relating  to  himself 
alone;  though  his  motive  was  not  of  the  highest 
and  purest,  he  jet  obtained  the  bread  and  thus  an 
answer  to  his  prayer.  God  is  in  heaven  and  we 
upon  earth  ;  lie  knows  what  we  have  need  of  be- 
fore we  ask  Him;  He  can  make  allowance  for  all 
our  ignorance,  our  mistakes,  misjudgments,  preju- 
dices, likes  and  dislikes,  our  disregard  of  others 
or  lack  of  consideration  for  them,  our  selfishness 
and  vanity.  We  do  not  know  our  own  hearts  fully 
and  cannot  ever  know  how  much  "  shamelessness  " 
arising  from  these  qualities  God  sees  in  us  when  we 
offer  prayer ;  but  if  we  are  sincere  and  true,  and 
particularly  if  our  prayers  can  abide  the  test  the 
Apostle  James  has  given,  that  we  ask  not  to  "  con- 
sume it  upon  our  lusts,"  then  we  may  feel  some  as- 
surance that  our  praj^ers  will  have  an  answer.  The 
petition  of  the  host  began  and  ended  with  self ;  our 
prayers  are  too  often  shameless  in  beginning  and 
ending  with  self,  yet  God  hears  and  answers  them. 
The  demand  of  the  host  must  have  come  upon 
his  friend  at  midnight  with  very  much  of  a  shock, 
at  both  its  untimeliness  and  the  lack  of  a  valid 
reason  for  it ;  in  his  first  hasty  thought  his  re- 
monstrant mood  makes  Irim  say,  "  I  cannot  rise 
and  give  thee,"  but  his  second  thought  is,  "  Yes,  I 
can,  and  that  is  the  best  way  to  deal  with  this 
strange  and  foolish  request."  Is  it  not  so  many 
times  with  God  when  our  prayers  at  first  go  up 
before  Him  ?  The  absurdities  in  them  which  we 
do  not  see  are  so  open  to  Him  ;  looking  at  them 


16  Four  Bible  Studies. 

from  His  own  point  of  view,  He  would  deem  it 
impossible  to  grant  them;  but  regarded  from  our 
point  of  view  and  as  we  think  they  would  affect 
ourselves  and  others.  He  sees  the  best  course  is  to 
answer  them. 

But  still  further  than  this,  there  is  a  spiritual 
shamelessness  actually  enjoined  upon  us,  both  by 
the  lesson  of  the  parable  and  by  that  of  the  pas- 
sage immediately  preceding  it.  A  disciple  has 
just  besought  Jesus,  "  Lord,  teach  us  to  pray,"  and 
in  response  He  gives  them  the  Lord's  Prayer. 
Now,  since  the  parable  directly  follows  the  prayer 
with  naught  else  between,  we  may  fairly  infer  that 
it  was  spoken  altogether  in  illustration  and  expo- 
sition of  it ;  and  thus  we  might  expect  to  find  in 
the  several  petitions  of  the  prayer  the  elements  of 
a  spiritual  shamelessness  corresponding  closely  to 
the  shamelessness  in  word  and  act  of  the  midnight 
petitioner.  Consider  the  first  four  petitions  of 
the  Lord's  Prayer :  ^'  Hallowed  be  Thy  name 
{ayiaGdrjroo)  ;  Thy  kingdom  come  (fA/9^rf»)  ;  Give 
[didov)  us  each  day  our  daily  bread ;  And  forgive 
{a^es)  us  our  sins,  for  we  also  forgive  every  £)ne 
that  is  indebted  to  us."  The  imperative  verbs  in 
these  four  requests  are  very  significantly  put  in 
the  aorist  tense,  and  they  furnish  a  broad,  per- 
vasive, and  inclusive  sweep  for  the  meaning  of 
every  sentence.  Thus  the  four  petitions  may  be 
read :  "  Let  Thy  name  be  hallowed  completely, 
immediately,  universally  ;  May  thy  kingdom  come 
at  once  and  everywhere;  Supply  our  temporal 
needs  fully  to-day  ;  Forgive  us  our  debts  fully  and 
completely,  for  after  that   manner   have  we  for- 


Bliamelessness.  17 

ffiven  our  debtors."  In  these  four  of  its  terms  the 
Lord's  Prayer  is  positive,  unconditional,  downright ; 
and  their  very  brevity  im])hes  their  comprehensive 
scope. 

Whatever  may  be  our  conclusions  as  to  the 
answers  God  makes  to  our  prayers,  there  can  be  no 
doubt  here  as  to  the  intent  of  our  Lord  to  have 
His  prayer  (the  model  for  all  others)  framed  upon 
these  lines  of  positive  and  direct  supplication,  and 
for  present  and  immediate  benefits.  IIoav  to  pray 
is  one  thing,  how  God  answers  prayer  is  another 
and  very  different  thing ;  our  prayers  for  all  good 
objects  may  be  conceived  in  a  spirit  of  great  ex- 
aggeration and  unbounded  expectancy ;  this  is 
what  our  Lord  commands  and  commends  and 
exemplifies  in  the  model  set  for  us:  "After  this 
manner  pray  ye"  (Matt.  vi.  9).  Consider  for  a 
moment  what  a  climax  of  spiritual  shamelessness 
is  in  these  words  :  "  And  forgive  us  our  sins  ;  for 
we  also  forgive  every  one  that  is  indebted  to  us." 
A  certain  servant  owed  his  lord  ten  thousand  tal- 
ents, but  when  about  to  be  sold  with  wife  and 
children,  he  appealed  successfully  to  the  mercy  of 
his  lord  and  was  forgiven  the  debt ;  the  same  ser- 
vantj  however,  could  not  forgive  a  fellow-servant 
one  hundred  pence.  Ten  thousand  (silver)  talents 
are  fifteen  million  dollars  ;  one  hundred  pence  are 
fifteen  dollars.  Now,  it  is  fair  and  natural  to  be- 
lieve that  Jesus,  in  naming  these  two  sums,  had  in 
mind  a  sense  of  the  difference  between  them  and 
that  He  intended  by  them  to  represent,  not  accu- 
rately nor  to  any  minute  particular  indeed,  but 
still  in  some  proportional  measure,  the  relation  our 


18  Four  Bible  studies. 

sins  against  Gocl  bear  to  the  sins  of  our  fellow-men 
ao^ainst  us;  He  miD:ht  have  named  one  talent  or 
even  ten  talents  in  place  of  one  hundred  pence,  or 
five  thousand  in  place  of  the  ten  thousand  talents, 
and  then  the  difference  would  have  seemingly  been 
almost  great  enough  ;  but  by  what  He  did  say.  He 
without  doubt  meant  that  there  was  virtually  an 
infinite  degree  of  proportion  between  the  two  cases 
of  debt ;  and  we  are  to  interpret  the  expressions  as 
constituting  a  declaration  that  the  sins  of  others 
against  us  are  to  be  accounted  as  nothing  in  com- 
parison with  our  sins  against  our  Heavenly  Father. 
Yet  in  this  prayer  we  are  to  ask  Him  to  forgive  us 
our  infinite  debt  when  we  have  forgiven  our  fellow- 
man  a  paltry  nothing,  and  are  to  boldly  proffer 
this  fact  of  our  forgiveness  of  mere  trifles  as  a  valid 
and  sufficient  EEASON  for  His  forgiveness  ! ! ! 
Oh,  the  unbounded  shamelessness  of  it !  When 
did  ever  human  reason  or  love  operate  to  make 
fifteen  dollars  equal  in  a  spiritual  or  moral  applica- 
tion to  fifteen  millions  ?  yet  here  they  are  made  so 
in  the  equations  of  God's  arithmetic,  and  we  see 
them,  by  a  rule  of  divine  dynamics,  set  in  precious 
equipoise,  swinging  free  in  opposite  scales  with 
level  beam  and  even  balance  !  Observe  the  notable 
difference  between  the  passage  here  and  as  it 
occurs  in  Matthew's  Gospel,  "  Forgive  us,  for  we 
also  forgive,"  nai  TAP  avroi  a(j)ioijiev  •  while  in 
Matthew  it  is :  "  As  we  also  have  forgiven,"  go^ 

Having  thus,  under  our  new  interpretation,  found 
the  true  lessons  of  the  parable,  let  us  draw  a  com- 
parison between  the  new  and  the  old.     The  old 


Sliamelessness.  19 

and  erroneous  exposition  represents  the  traveller  as 
desiring  or  needing  food  at  midnight,  a  time  when 
it  is  neither  natural  nor  healthful  to  take  it,  nor 
made  obligatory  under  the  rules  of  hospitality  to 
furnish  it ;  it  ignores  also  the  custom  of  travellers 
to  carry  their  own  loaves  with  them  in  their  scrip. 
The  host  is  represented  as  perfectly  right  and  rea- 
sonable in  waking  up  his  neighbour  and  urging  a 
petition  for  food  ;  the  neighbour  is  all  wrong  in 
objecting,  in  manner  and  words  he  is  surly  and 
cross,  and  gives  the  bread  only  after  much  "  im- 
portunity." The  application  is,  we  must  always  go 
to  God  with  proper  requests  and  great  importunity, 
for  He  loves  our  clamour  and  delays  answer  in  or- 
der to  enjoy  our  repeated  appeals,  just  as  an  earthly 
father  enjoys  the  teasing  of  his  children ;  but  God 
is  not  like  the  neighbour  in  that  the  latter  was 
morose  and  sullen  in  his  giving.  Thus  the  parable 
is  lamely  made  to  deny  its  own  nature,  in  giving  a 
lesson  by  contrast  and  not,  according  to  the  true 
constitution  of  a  parable,  b}^  likeness. 

In  opposition  to  this,  our  new  exposition  declares 
that  the  ti'aveller  did  not  need  food  and  was  not 
entitled  to  it  as  a  guest,  or  that,  if  he  did  need,  he 
had  it  with  him  ;  that  the  host  was  doing  an  unnec- 
essary act  in  rousing  up  the  neighbour,  and  that  the 
latter  gave  the  shameless  one  at  once  all  that  he 
asked  for.  Our  application  is  that,  in  spite  of  any 
extravagance  or  impropriety  in  our  prayers,  God 
does  hear  and  answer  them  ;  He  loves  us  for  the 
motives  that  prompt  to  shamelessness  in  asking  for 
any  good  thing,  but  He  does  not  love  us  for  mere 
importunity,  and  He  has  assured  us  that  He  will 


20  Four  Bible  Studies. 

certainly  answer  our  prayers.  Our  Lord  has  given 
us  encouragement  in  this  by  the  unlimited  terms  in 
which  nearly  all  the  petitions  of  His  model  prayer 
are  conceived.  The  Apostle  Paul  confirms  us  in 
this  blessed  assurance,  declaring  in  his  letter  to  the 
Ephesians  (iii.  20)  that  "  God  is  able  to  do  exceed- 
ing abundantly  above  all  that  we  ask  or  think." 
There  is  a  tremendous  sweep  in  these  words.  Do 
we  ask  for  all,  everything  good  we  would  have 
done  ?  He  is  able  to  do  exceeding  abundantly 
above  that ;  but  we  are  not  able  to  ask  or  even  to 
think  of  all  the  good  things  He  is  able  to  do ;  we 
cannot  THINK  of  enough  good  things  to  have 
done! 

Nor  is  there  need  to  be  very  choice  or  precise  in 
the  selection  of  our  words.  To  show  this,  Paul  in 
another  place  (Komans  viii.  26,  27)  sets  forth  the 
manner  in  which  God  receives  and  interprets  our 
petitions.  We  know  not  what  we  should  pray  for 
as  we  ought,  so  the  Spirit  helps  our  infirmities  and 
makes  up  for  our  ignorance  and  our  failure  to  com- 
prehend all  the  glorious  possibilities  open  to  us 
through  prayer;  so  far  from  making  selection  of 
subjects,  or  fine  choice  of  words  ;  so  far  from  con- 
finino:  ourselves  to  those  thino^s  which  to  our  limited 
view  seem  only  the  proper  things  to  be  prayed  for, 
we  may  go  as  the  host  did,  careless  about  words  or 
about  proprieties  of  time  or  place,  and  with  shame- 
lessness  ask,  knowing  that  we  can  never  ask  enough ; 
for  we  are  assured  that  He  that  searcheth  our  hearts 
knoweth  what  is  the  mind  of  the  Spirit  when 
that  Spirit  translates  our  weak,  ill-directed,  dis- 
jointed, and  thinly-diluted  prayers  into  such  ripe, 


Shamelessness.  21 

rounded,  symmetrical  prayers  as  shall  call  down 
from  heaven  a  response  fully  in  consonance  with 
that  good  and  acceptable  and  perfect  will  of  God. 
There  are  thus  furnished  to  us  in  this  parable  rea- 
sons without  number  or  limit  for  going  boldly  to 
The  Throne  of  Grace. 


REVENGE. 

Luke  xviii.  1-8. 

This  parable  was  spoken  "  to  the  end  that  men 
ought  alwaj^s  to  pray  and  not  faint."  The  inter- 
pretation general!}^  given  is  :  that  a  widow,  by  her 
importunity,  obh'ged  an  unwilhng  and  unjust  judge 
to  grant  the  justice  rightfully  her  due  from  her  ad- 
versary ;  and  the  lesson  is  said  to  be,  that  we  should 
use  importunity  in  our  prayers,  going  often  with 
the  same  petition  to  God;  He  loves  to  hear  us 
pray,  takes  pleasure  in  our  importunity,  and,  after 
withholding  for  a  time  the  answer,  eventually 
grants  what  we  ask.  Our  faith  is  also  said  to  be 
increased  and  strengthened  by  this  persistence  in 
prayer.  In  this  parable  also,  as  in  that  of  the 
Friend  at  Midnight,  there  is  one  character  by 
whom  the  lesson  is  said  to  come  in  the  way  of 
contrast  and  not  of  likeness  ;  it  is  asserted  that  God 
cannot  be  like  the  unjust  judge,  indifferent  as  to 
the  righteousness  or  unrighteousness  of  His  own 
conduct  and  the  administration  of  His  own  o-overn- 
ment;  that,  in  contrast  to  the  unjust  judge.  He  is 
always  willing  to  hear  us,  and  that  if  an  unjust 
judge  was  constrained  by  importunity  to  grant  a 
helpless  widow's  request,  much  more  our  Father,  a 
just  judge,  will  be  moved  by  our  importunity. 

We  take  decided  exception  to  this  interpretation 
and  to  its  application,  and,  as  in  the  former  parable, 


Revenge.  23 

declare  that  the  unjust  judge  represents  God  di- 
rectly and  by  likeness  in  both  his  acts  and  words, 
and  does  not  represent  Him  by  way  of  contrast  or 
unlikeness.  We  are  to  have  the  judge  "  cast  along- 
side "  of  God  as  in  the  true  method  of  a  napafiokrfy 
and  in  all  that  he  does  and  says  he  is  actino^  in  a 
truly  parallel  way,  and  illustrates  God's  methods 
and  plans  as  directly  as  any  character  in  any  other 
parable  spoken  by  Jesus.  On  a  close  study  it  will 
be  seen  that  in  both  Authorized  and  Revised  ver- 
sions the  following  words  and  phrases  have  not 
been  correctly  translated :  First,  in  the  reason 
given  b}^  the  judge  for  a  change  in  his  conduct 
toward  the  widow,  diaye  ro  naptx^iy  f^ioi  uonov 
'''W  X^'jP^'^  TavT7]v,  the  translation  is,  "  because 
this  widow  troubleth  me  "  ;  but  the  true  meaning 
to  be  given  it  is,  "  because  this  widow  is  bringing 
trouble  upon  me  "  ;  in  the  wrong  translation  the 
thought  is,  "she  is  a  pestering,  teasing,  worrying 
creature,"  but  by  the  right  rendering  the  thought 
is,  "there  is  a  real,  tano-ible  trouble  she  is  brino-ino: 
upon  me  as  a  consequence  of  this  continual  com- 
ing." Secondly,  the  words  i'yoL  jat/  vnooniaar)  fje 
are  rendered,  "lest  she  weary  me,"  but  the  right 
meaning  is,  "  lest  she  give  me  a  black  eye  "  ;  the 
thought  is,  not  that  the  woman  will  pester  the 
judge  till  he  is  tired  out,  and  so  yields  from  mere 
intolerance  of  her  worriments,  but  it  is  that  a  black 
eye  will  be  given  him  through  her  coming;  this 
black  eye  being  a  more  specific  name  for,  or  a  cul- 
mination of,  the  "trouble"  she  was  to  bring  on 
him.  What  was  meant  by  the  black  eye  will  be 
shown  further  on. 


24  Four  Bible  Studies. 

Thirdly,  Our  Lord  savs  (Ttb  and  8th  verses) 
noirfffsi  TYjv  sKdiKYjaiv^  ''  He  will  (do  or  work  or) 
make  revenge  for  His  chosen  "  ;  this  is  the  literal 
and  correct  translation,  and  the  two  words  should 
be  so  rendered  in  English  that  they  may  preserve 
the  full  force  of  the  Greek,  and  not  by  the  milder 
and  weaker  phrase,  "  He  will  avenge " ;  for  the 
thought  is  of  an  intense  purpose  by  our  Heavenl}^ 
Father  to  do  very  effectively  and  completely  what- 
ever He  would  do  for  His  elect.  These  two  ex- 
pressions, made  up  of  the  verb  with  the  noun,  are 
thus  notably  twice  repeated  in  this  application 
made  by  our  Lord  of  the  parable.  Again,  in  the 
first  part  of  the  parable,  there  are  presented  by 
the  current  method  of  exposition  other  wrong 
readings  of  certain  terms.  The  word  "avenge," 
as  used  by  the  widow,  is  made  to  mean  "  do  right 
or  do  justice "  ;  such  rendering  is  utterly  inade- 
quate; ehShij^aov  pi8  (the  aorist  of  the  imperative) 
in  the  mouth  of  the  woman  plainly  means  "  avenge 
me  "  ;  mere  right  or  justice  is  not  what  she  is  ask- 
ing for ;  it  is  something  more  than  these  and  very 
much  more ;  she  is  set  on  securing  a  recompense 
beyond  what  is  just  or  right ;  she  demands  revenge. 
She  does  not  say,  ShcaiGoaov  m^,  "do  me  justice," 
Avhich  would  be  the  proper  verb  if  only  justice  was 
sought  for,  but  ejiSbiriGov  //f,  "avenge  me";  and 
ijidiKrjGii,  for  its  full  and  true  significance,  can 
never  be  restricted  to  mean  only  duir]. 

One  principal  difference  between  this  present 
interpretation  of  the  parable  and  the  exegesis 
hitherto  generally  accepted  consists  in  the  differ- 
ence in  application  of  the  Greek  word  e7i6Lja](jis 


Revenge.  25 

or  tK8iKr)60D  and  of  the  English  word  "  avenge." 
To  illustrate:  A  may  do  an  injury  to  B,  and  E 
may  express  in  English  a  desire  to  be  avenged  for 
that  injury  ;  such  an  expression  is  susceptible  of 
two  meanings:  either  (c)  that  B  should  receive  a 
recompense  exactly  and  justly  commensurate  with 
the  injury,  which  would  be  simple  justice;  or  (d) 
that  this  recompense  should  exceed  the  limit  of 
what  would  be  rightfully  and  equitably  due  him ; 
and  then  it  would  be  revenge.  But  it  will  be 
found,  upon  a  close  study  of  all  those  passages 
in  the  New  Testament  and  Septuagint  in  which 
hidinriaii  and  its  co-derivatives  are  employed,  that 
those  words  in  all  of  them  bear  the  wide  and  com- 
prehensive meaning  indicated  in  (d) ;  and  that  the 
significance  of  them  would  be  unwarrantably  re- 
stricted, and  the  true  and  full  tenor  of  those 
passages  would  be  lost,  if  their  application  were 
to  be  limited  as  set  forth  in  (c).  Thus  it  may  be 
seen  that  the  usage  of  the  English  "  avenge  "  is 
much  broader  in  scope  than  that  of  the  Greek 
word,  since  it  is  in  our  modern  tongue  loosely 
and  without  discrimination  applicable  to  any  case 
of  recompense,  whether  of  justice  or  revenge. 

Therefore,  proceeding  from  such  conclusion  in 
this  present  case,  it  must  appear  as  a  fact  estab- 
lished, that  the  limitation  by  interpreters  of  the 
widow's  appeal  to  a  demand  for  mere  justice  can- 
not be  constituted  from  a  proper  application  of  the 
Greek  word  andiK/fGov.  The  broad  and  loose 
usao-e  of  the  English  word  "avenge"  has  thus 
misled  our  exegetes  into  the  wrong  assignment 
to  the  Greek  Avord  of  a  meaning  more  restricted 


26  Four  Bible  Studies. 

and  narrow  than  its  usage  by  contemporary  Greek 
authors  would  sanction.  Indeed,  the  tendency  has 
ever  been  to  minimize  the  meaning's  of  words  and 
phrases  of  this  parable  in  some  instances,  and  to 
"  strain  "  the  meanings  in  others.  It  must  be  be- 
lieved that  our  Divine  Master  exercised  at  least 
ordinary  intelligence  in  the  choice  of  words,  and 
that  Luke,  under  guidance  of  the  Holy  Spirit,  as 
well  as  of  his  own  mental  power  to  discriminate, 
chose  the  right  Greek  words  to  express  the  thoughts 
uttered  by  our  Saviour  in  Aramaic,  if  He  did  so 
utter  them.  There  was  a  purpose  definitely  exer- 
cised in  the  selection  of  the  characters  of  the  para- 
ble, and  in  the  words  that  set  forth  their  thouirhts 
and  acts.  The  selection  of  an  unjust  instead  of  a 
just  judge  was  for  a  purpose ;  there  was  a  signifi- 
cance in  making  a  widow  the  petitioner  rather 
than  any  other  character;  it  was  for  a  purpose 
and  with  right  appreciation  of  the  force  of  the 
words  that  Jesus  four  times  spoke  of  revenge  and 
not  once  of  justice  ;  if  He  had  used  this  latter  term 
but  once  in  the  parable,  there  might  have  been 
some  slight  ground  for  regarding  the  two  terms 
as  convertible,  but  as  He  did  not,  we  are  fairly  to 
conclude  that  He  used  the  word  ijidiHrjaiv  in  its 
ordinary  and  accepted  Greek  sense. 

Too  often,  apparently,  an  excessive  fear  of  mak- 
ing a  parable  "  go  on  all  fours "  has  restrained 
expositors  from  giving  to  each  character  and  act 
and  expression  in  a  parable  its  proper  representa- 
tive value ;  such  a  fear  has  doubtless  operated  in 
this  instance  to  nullify  and  make  valueless  the 
words  and  acts  of  the  two  persons  in  the  parable ; 


Revenge.  27 

attention  has  been  strongly  fixed  upon  the  "  im- 
portunity "  supposed  to  be  its  only  lesson,  the 
word- meanings  have  been  made  adjustable  as 
closely  as  might  be  to  that,  and  no  stress  at  all 
has  been  laid  upon  the  peculiar  and  operative 
words  and  sentences  evidently  framed  with  a  fine 
discriminative  sense  of  their  import  by  our  Great 
Teacher,  that  they  might  convey  clearly  and  ac- 
curately all  of  the  lesson  He  intended.  The  warn- 
ing: against  o-oinof  on  all  fours  mio;ht  well  enouo^h 
be  addressed,  as  doubtless  it  often  was  of  old,  to 
those  hair-splitting  scribes  who  could  make  their 
microscopic  analyses  so  fine  as  to  discover  mean- 
ings in  the  turn  of  every  letter  or  in  its  position 
on  the  parchment  roll ;  who  could  strain  out  gnats 
and  swallow  many  a  camel  in  their  elaborate  and 
fantastic  expositions  of  the  Law ;  but  we  need  not, 
in  this  day  of  enlightenment,  be  restrained,  through 
any  consideration  of  its  abuse,  from  putting  to  its 
right  and  fairly  intended  use  every  portion  of  these 
divine  teachings  of  Jesus ;  and  we  need  claim  for 
Him  simply  the  same  discretion  in  the  ordinary 
use  of  language  that  we  ourselves  would  have. 
It  certainly  could  not  be  that  He,  in  all  other 
cases  so  careful  and  unerring  in  diction,  should  in 
the  two  instances  of  these  parables  have  been  so 
very  negligent  and  clumsy ;  it  is  preferable,  at  all 
hazards,  to  take  these  terms  in  their  plain,  usual, 
and  open  sense,  and  if  that  does  not  lead  us  to  a 
natural  and  fair  explanation,  then  to  confess  our 
inability  to  find  a  present  solution,  and  wait  in 
patience,  ignorant  of  the  precious  lesson,  until  the 
Spirit  of  Truth  may  give  such  spiritual  insight  into 


28  Four  Bible  Studies. 

"  the  deep  things  of  God  "  as  will  enable  us  to  fully 
unfold  them  in  their  beauty  and  power.  Mean- 
while, and  Avith  earnest  pra^^er  for  that  light,  let 
one  humble  attempt  here  be  made  to  bring  out 
what  may  be  deemed  its  right  interpretation. 

A  widow  comes  to  the  court  of  an  unjust  judge  ; 
she  can  come  because  she  is  a  widow,  uncontrolled 
by  any  one ;  a  wife  or  daughter  could  not  come, 
for  the  Oriental  husband  or  father,  if  he*  approved 
of  the  cause,  would  come  himself  in  their  place, 
and  if  he  disapproved  would  not  allow  them  to 
come ;  a  man  would  not  be  allowed  to  come,  even 
"  for  a  while,"  for  he  could  be  more  summarily 
dealt  with  than  a  woman,  and  driven  with  blows 
from  the  judgment  seat.  So  it  is  a  widow,  one 
with  the  privilege  to  come  "continually,"  who 
appears  before  a  judge,  not  of  righteousness,  but 
of  unrighteousness,  and  pleads,  "  avenge  me  of  my 
adversar}^"  Evidently,  we  are  not  to  regard  this 
woman  as  like  other  Avidows  referred  to  in  the 
Bible;  she  was  not  of  the  weak-minded,  nerveless 
sort,  yielding  without  opposition  to  any  oppression 
it  was  the  common  custom  to  visit  upon  defence- 
less Avidows  of  that  time ;  the  fact  of  coming  with 
a  petition  for  rcA^enge  marks  her  as  of  strong  Avill 
and  probably  unscrupulous  purpose ;  so  that,  not 
tamelv  submitting  to  injustice,  she  is  before  the 
judge,  Avith  full  resolution  and  a  settled  plan  for 
getting  even  and  more  than  even  Avith  her  adver- 
sary. She  comes  to  an  unjust,  not  to  a  just  judge, 
for  the  former  could  give  her  re  Avenge,  but  the  lat- 
ter only  justice.  The  judge  allows  her  to  come  for 
a  while,  eni  xporov,  but  at  the  end  of  that  "  while," 


Revenge.  29 

hoTvever  long  it  may  have  been,  lie  finds  it  not  best 
for  him  to  let  her  come  any  longer;  she  is  bring- 
ing trouble  and  must  be  stopped,  for  if  her  coming 
should  be  continual,  fzb  rtAo?,  she  would  give  him 
a  black  eye.  It  is  evident  from  the  manner  of 
statement  that  in  the  judge's  view  the  nonov  and 
the  vnoDuiaaiv  are  the  same,  or  at  least  that  the 
former  is  a  direct  and  immediate  result  of  the  lat- 
ter. What,  then,  is  the  "  trouble,''  and  what  the 
''  black  eye  "  ? 

To  define  the  latter  first,  the  term  clearly  has 
here  no  meaning  of  a  physical  import;  there  was 
no  danger  that  the  kadi,  sitting  in  a  public  place, 
attended  by  servants  and  officers  of  his  court  to 
keep  between  himself  and  the  suitors  and  audience 
such  respectful  distance  as  would  secure  due  main- 
tenance of  dignity  and  safety,  would  be  struck  in 
the  face  and  under  the  eye  by  the  fist  of  the  woman 
in  a  fit  of  desperation  and  despair.  The  term  has 
only  an  ethical  meaning  here,  the  same  as  it  has 
with  us  to-day ;  that  is,  to  get  a  black  eye  means 
to  have  one's  plans  defeated,  to  be  disappointed  as 
to  results  expected  from  certain  events  or  acts,  to 
be  overthrown  by  some  sudden  and  un])reventable 
disaster.  Paul  used  it  in  such  ethical  sense  when 
describinor  his  manner  of  fio-htino-  tlie  entano-lino' 
lusts  of  the  body;  he  made  no  feint  of  the  fight- 
ing, throwing  out  his  fists  at  random  as  one  that 
beateth  the  air,  but  straight,  solid  blows  were  de- 
livered right  "under  the  eye,"  and  thus  his  pas- 
sions were  sent  to  grass  and  thei'c  kept  under.  Ilis 
figures  were  borrowed  from  the  prize-ring  in  this 
instance,  as  they  Avere  in  some  others.     What  was 


30  Four  Bible  Studies. 

the  particular  ethical  character  of  this  black  eye  in 
the  judge's  case  ? 

For  an  Eastern  judge  there  were  no  set  codes  of 
laws  as  in  Western  countries,  carefully  and  elabo- 
rately framed,  defining  and  classifying  offences,  and 
appointing  a  fit  and  well-measured  punishment  for 
each  ;  with  no  guide  of  this  sort,  and  unfettered 
by  any  rules  confining  his  action  within  well-set 
bounds,  he  was  free  to  give  judgment  according  to 
a  few  plain  general  principles  of  right  as  he  might 
apprehend  them,  and  to  order  his  decrees  under 
that  simple  moral  code,  short  and  unwritten,  which 
in  all  ages  and  nations  has  bounded  almost  tlie 
entire  scope  of  duty  as  betAveen  man  and  man. 
With  a  power  thus  practically  unlimited,  he  both 
made  and  executed  his  law ;  with  good  common 
sense,  ready  seizure  of  the  main  points  of  a  case, 
quick  sagacity  in  applying  the  remedy  or  penalty, 
and,  lastly,  an  honest  purpose  to  do  right,  he  was 
the  ideal  kadi  of  the  Orient,  well  equipped  for  dis- 
pensing a  rude  justice  fairly  and  efficiently;  there, 
as  here,  the  impartial  judge  is  in  high  honour,  and 
his  decrees  are  accepted  and  obeyed  as  the  un- 
avoidable decrees  of  fate.  Before  such  a  judge  of 
righteousness  immediate  and  complete  relief  is  the 
result  of  his  trial  to  everj^  suitor,  and  he  would  not 
be  put  off  unless  for  the  purpose  of  obtaining  new 
evidence.  The  judgment  rendered  b}^  King  Solo- 
mon (1  Kings  iii.  16-28)  in  the  case  of  a  claim  by 
two  women  of  the  same  living  child,  is  a  fine  ex- 
ample of  the  methods  and  ways  open  to  an  honest 
Eastern  judge  in  arriving  at  a  just  and  instant  de- 
cision ;  the  whole  transaction  might  not  have  occu- 


Revenge.  31 

pied  more  than  fifteen  minutes.  To  the  mind  of 
an  Oriental,  therefore,  delay  by  a  judge  for  days 
in  giving  judgment  would  appear  strange  and  unac- 
countable; inquiries  would  arise  as  to  the  reasons 
for  a  suitor  to  be  "continually  coming";  if  sus- 
picions were  well  founded  that  he  had  a  case  too 
complicated  for  him  to  master,  or,  if  able,  he  was 
unwilling  for  sordid  or  dishonest  reasons  to  give  a 
decision,  then,  and  in  either  instance,  his  capacity 
and  integrity  would,  in  the  popular  thought,  re- 
ceive a  serious  blow ;  all  trust  in  his  uprightness 
would  be  gone,  his  unfitness  for  the  office  made 
clear;  he  would  receive  (almost  without  metaphor) 
a  black  eye  in  the  loss  of  his  reputation  and  of  the 
confidence  of  the  community  ;  for  it  is  true  in  East- 
ern, as  in  Western  lands,  no  judge  can  long  hold 
office  who  administers  it  w^ithout  the  "  fear  of  God 
or  the  regard  of  man."  And  the  consequences 
might  not  stop  there;  reports  of  his  inefficiency 
and  dishonesty  would  reach  the  ears  of  his  supe- 
riors, and  if  proved  true,  he  would  lose  his  office, 
and  might  lose  his  head. 

It  is  clear,  therefore,  that  the  continual  coming 
of  this  woman  must  be  stopped  if  this  unjust  judge 
would  avert  the  disaster  sure  to  follow ;  and  so  far 
from  allowing  her  any  exercise  of  "  importunity," 
it  is  the  very  condition  most  to  be  dreaded  and 
avoided.  The  "for-a-while"  has  been  already  too 
far  prolonged  ;  the  trouble  she'is  bringing  will  surely 
draw  on  its  dread  result  if  any  importunity  is  per- 
mitted, lie  will  prevent  it  at  once  by  granting  her 
prayer,  giving  her  the  revenge  she  asks;  to  give 
mere  justice  would  not  be  enough;  it  would  not 


32  Four  Bible  Studies. 

stop  her  coming;  she  could  and  would,  with  a 
woman's  persistence,  come  again.  She  knew  that 
from  an  unjust  judge  she  could  as  well  have  re- 
venge as  justice  ;  she  held  the  key  of  the  situation, 
so  that  he  "  who  feared  not  God  nor  regarded 
man  "  is  constrained  to  do  the  behest  of  a  defence- 
less, powerless  woman.  The  tables  are,  in  a  man- 
ner, turned  ;  the  two  parties  change  positions :  she 
is  the  real  judge  and  arbiter  of  his  fate ;  he  is  help- 
lessly compelled  to  do  her  wishes,  and  there  is  no 
other  resource  left  him.  He  might  now  offer  to 
give  her  justice,  to  have  her  adversary  appear  with 
her  before  him,  to  hear  both  sides,  and  decide  im- 
partially and  justly  ;  but  it  is  not  the  nature  of  an 
unjust  judge  to  do  that.  It  is  also  too  late  now ;  his 
office  and  possibly  life  are  in  instant  peril ;  the  one 
thing  to  do  is  to  grant  her  prayer  and  stop  her 
coming. 

In  the  work  by  Canon  Tristam,  entitled  "  East- 
ern Customs  in  Bible  Lands,"  there  is  an  interesting 
passage  in  the  chapter  entitled  ''  Eastern  Jurispru- 
dence," pages  228  and  229,  as  follows  :  "  I  well  re- 
member a  scene  which  vividly  re-enacted  the  par- 
able of  the  '  Unjust  Judge.'  It  was  in  the  ancient 
city  of  [Nisibis,  in  Mesopotamia.  Immediately  on 
entering  the  gate  of  the  city,  on  one  side  stood  the 
prison  with  its  barred  windows,  through  which  the 
prisoners  thrust  their  arms  and  begged  for  alms. 
Opposite  was  a  large  open  hall,  the  court  of  justice 
of  the  place.  On  a  slightly  raised  dais  at  the 
further  end  sat  the  kadi  or  judge,  half  buried  in 
cushions.  Round  him  squatted  various  secretaries 
and  other  notables.     Tlie  populace  crowded  into 


Revenge.  38 

the  rest  of  the  hall,  a  dozen  voices  clamouring  at 
once,  each  claiming  that  his  cause  should  be  first 
heard.  The  more  prudent  litigants  joined  not  in 
the  fray,  but  held  whispered  communications  with 
the  secretaries,  passing  bribes,  euphemistically  called 
fees,  into  the  hands  of  one  or  another.  When  the 
greed  of  the  underlings  was  satisfied,  one  of  them 
would  Avhisper  to  the  kadi,  who  would  promptly 
call  such  and  such  a  case.  It  seemed  to  be  ordi- 
narily taken  for  granted  that  judgment  would  go 
for  the  litigant  who  had  bribed  highest.  But  mean- 
time a  poor  woman  on  the  skirts  of  the  crowd  per- 
petually interrupted  the  proceedings  with  loud  cries 
for  justice.  She  was  sternly  bidden  to  be  silent, 
and  reproachfully  told  that  she  came  there  every 
day.  '  And  so  I  will,'  she  cried  out,  '  till  the  kadi 
hears  me.'  At  length,  at  the  end  of  a  suit,  the 
judge  impatiently  demanded,  '  What  does  that 
woman  want  ? '  Her  story  was  soon  told.  Her  only 
son  had  been  taken  for  a  soldier,  and  she  w^as  left 
alone  and  could  not  till  her  piece  of  ground ;  yet 
the  tax-gatherer  had  forced  her  to  pay  the  impost, 
from  which  as  a  lone  widow  she  should  be  exempt. 
The  judge  asked  her  a  few  questions,  and  said, '  Let 
her  be  exempt.'  Thus  her  perseverance  was  re- 
warded. Had  she  had  money  to  fee  a  clerk,  she 
might  have  been  excused  long  before." 

Here  we  see  that  the  woman  was  reproached, 
not  for  her  importunity,  but  for  her  coming  every 
day  ;  the  other  suitors  were  just  as  importunate, 
each  crying  out  for  a  hearing,  but  it  was  for  this 
one  day,  no  evidence  appearing  that,  like  the 
woman,  they  had  been  coming  every  day.  With 
3 


34  Four  Bible  studies. 

her,  as  with  the  widow  of  the  parable,  it  was  not 
importunity  for  one  day,  but  the  "  continual  com- 
ing "  that  in  both  cases  brought  the  favourable 
decree.  A  clear  distinction  must  thus  be  made  in 
the  meanings  of  the  two  expressions ;  it  is  a  con- 
clusion altogether  unwarranted  to  say  that  they 
are  of  interchangeable  application.  The  main  dif- 
ference between  the  w^oman  in  this  account  and 
the  widow  of  our  parable  is,  that  the  one  was  ask- 
ing for  w^hat  was  clearly  just,  but  the  other  for 
revenge.  The  judge  whom  Canon  Tristam  saw, 
had  been  delaying  justice  for  the  sake  of  a  bribe, 
and  yielded  to  the  woman  Tvhen  it  turned  out  that 
she  had  no  bribe  to  give ;  but  the  judge  in  our 
parable  gave  the  widow  her  answer  for  a  more  hon- 
est and  serious  reason.  From  the  soliloquy  which 
our  Lord  puts  in  his  mouth  we  see  the  workings 
of  his  heart;  pi'ide  and  haughtiness  were  there  in 
abundant  measure,  but  no  dishonesty ;  the  words 
in  which  Jesus  makes  him  open  to  us  his  innermost 
thought  show  that  fear  of  a  '*  black  eve  ''  was  the 
only  but  sufficient  motive  with  him  for  granting 
her  revenge. 

Now^  w^e  have  come  to  the  proper  application  of 
the  parable.  We  who  pray  are  like  the  wndow, 
and  are  to  come  and  ask,  not  for  justice,  but  for 
"  revenge."  There  are  two  passages  in  the  JN^ew 
Testament  from  which  we  may  obtain  the  ethical 
and  spiritual  meaning  of  that  word  as  it  relates  to 
the  subject-matter  and  to  the  manner  of  our  pray- 
ers ;  for,  as  it  means,  when  used  in  its  ordinary  and 
bad  sense,  an  excessive  retaliation  of  evil  in  return 
for  evil  suffered,  so,  when  used,  as  here,  in  its  good 


Bevenge.  35 

sense  it  means  an  excess  of  good  action,  an  over- 
plus of  well-doing.  In  2  Cor.  x.  6  Paul  com- 
mends the  obedience  to  the  Gospel  of  some  and 
condemns  the  disobedience  of  others,  and  declares 
that  after  the  fulfilment  of  the  obedience  of  the 
faithful  ones,  the  disobedience  of  those  hitherto 
unfaithful  shall  be  "  revenged "  ;  that  is,  through 
the  operation  of  the  spiritual,  uncarnal  weapons 
brought  to  bear  upon  them,  all  in  them  that  exalts 
itself  against  the  knowledge  of  God  shall  be  cast 
down,  and  every  thought  bi'ought  into  captivity  to 
the  obedience  of  Christ.  In  2  Cor.  vii.  10  and  11, 
speaking  of  the  effect  upon  those  to  whom  he  was 
writing  of  that  godly  sorrow  which  worketh  re- 
pentance unto  salvation,  the  Apostle  testifies  to  the 
carefulness,  the  clearing  of  themselves,  the  indigna- 
tion, fear,  desire,  zeal,  and  revenge  it  wrought  in 
them.  Here  the  particular  meaning  of  "  revenge  " 
is  made  clear  from  the  text  preceding ;  the  church 
at  Corinth  had  for  a  season  dropped  into  such  laxity 
of  discipline  as  to  suffer  among  them  without  cor- 
rection or  rebuke  a  most  heinous  example  of  evil 
as  recorded  in  1  Cor.  v.,  and  when,  under  the  sting 
of  Paul's  sharp  letter,  they  had  been  made  con- 
scious of  their  own  sin  and  had  repented,  they 
were  most  eager  to  repair  the  wrong,  to  purify  the 
church  ;  and  then,  proceeding  further  than  was  re- 
quired of  them  strictly  in  the  case,  they  made  for 
a  so  much  higher  spiritual  life  and  for  so  much 
purer  morals  as  their  life  and  morals  before  then 
had  been  low  and  slack  ;  and  thus  their  godly  sor- 
row had  wrought  upon  them  its  proper  and  whole- 
some "  revenue." 


36  Four  Bible  Studies. 

Such,  therefore,  must  be  the  true  tenor  of  the 
word  as  apphed  by  our  Saviour  to  the  prayers  of 
God's  elect ;  they  are  to  ask  for  such  abundance  as 
to  quantity,  such  excellence  as  to  quality,  of  all  the 
good  things  He  has  to  give,  as  will  be  far  in  excess 
of  what,  in  men's  judgment,  would  be  deemed 
reasonable  and  fair ;  they  are  to  go  beyond  justice, 
and  ask  for  revenge.  And  He  can  grant  it.  Bound 
by  no  consideration  whatever  as  limiting  His  will 
and  power,  high  above  all  law  (as  He  is  the  author 
of  all  law),  high  above  that  realm  where  what  we 
apprehend  as  causes  and  effects  are  in  action,  "  He 
is  able  to  do  exceeding  abundantly  above  all  that 
we  ask  or  think  "  ;  in  all  these  respects  He  is  like 
the  unjust  judge.  Like  him  also  in  another  and 
wonderful  respect ;  for  as  the  judge  is  compelled 
by  the  widow,  and  must  comply  under  peril  of 
disgrace  and  loss,  so  our  gracious  God  represents 
Himself  here  as  placing  at  stake  His  character  as 
the  hearer  and  answerer  of  prayer,  and  as  resting 
upon  it  His  very  title  to  office  as  our  Father  and 
God.  This  thought  controls  in  the  application 
by  our  divine  Lord,  "He  will  (or  shall)  work 
out  the  aveno^ino:  of  His  own  elect."  He  shows 
God  as  having  a  certain  relation  to  His  people ; 
they  are  His  chosen  ones,  and  therefore,  as  in  all 
other  instances  where  persons  or  people  are  spoken 
of  as  "  chosen,"  there  is  implied  a  mutual  cove- 
nant. God's  elect  have  duties  to  perform  toward 
Him,  and,  on  the  other  hand,  God  has  duties  to 
perform  toward  His  elect.  It  is  God's  side  of  this 
covenant  which  our  Saviour  lays  stress  upon  in 
this  application ;   He  puts  it  in  the  strong  inter- 


Mevenge.  37 

rogative  form,  "  And  shall  not  God  work  out  the 
avenging  of  His  OAvn  elect  ?  "  as  if  to  say  :  "  How 
preposterous  to  think  that  God  shall  not  work  out 
the  aveng-ino^  of  His  own  elect !  He  shall,  and  from 
the  very  fact  that  He  has  chosen  them."  God  is 
under  constraint  and  tied  up  to  just  such  a  course 
with  His  elect ;  He  cannot  free  Himself  from  it 
except  He  cast  them  off  utterly  and  disown  them 
as  His  elect,  something  He  has  never  yet  done  and 
never  can  do  while  they  are  faithful  to  Him.  Our 
Master  assuredly  intended  to  emphasize  these  cove- 
nant relations,  as  constituting  a  strong  and  inde- 
feasible claim  upon  our  Heavenly  Father,  making 
impossible  the  refusal  of  any  prayer.  This  is  the 
all-sufficient  reason  why  "  men  ought  always  to 
pray  and  not  faint." 

It  remains  to  notice  some  expressions  in  the  6th 
and  Yth  verses.  "  Hear  what  the  unjust  judge 
saith."  Our  attention  is  directed,  not  to  what  the 
judge  does,  not  to  what  the  widow  does  or  says, 
but  only  to  what  the  judge  says;  he  will  avenge 
her  lest  she  give  him  a  black  eye  ;  so  he  declares  ; 
he  could  not  suffer  her  coming  any  more ;  the 
motive  for  his  action  is  selfish,  not  dictated  by  any 
benevolent  feeling  toward  the  supplicant ;  never- 
theless, the  action  promptly  relieves  the  widow. 
God  is  the  fountain  of  love  and  mercy ;  nay.  He  is 
love  itself ;  and  if  He  would  be  God,  then  He 
must  for  his  own  sake  and  of  necessity  answer 
prayer  ;  and,  further,  all  the  while  that  He  is  work- 
ing out  revenge  for  His  chosen.  He  is  also  fAanpo- 
OvfABi  ("  broad-hearted  ")  toward  them.  This  word, 
translated  "  long-suffering  "  and  "  having  patience  " 


38  Four  Bible  Studies, 

in  other  parts  of  the  l^ew  Testament,  is  not  well 
given  the  right  sense  here  in  the  English  word 
"  long-suffering  "  ;  as  intended  by  Luke,  tiie  Greek 
word  has  a  meaning  different  from  that  conveyed 
by  the  English  word  into  which  it  is  translated  ;  it 
is  not  the  true  thought  that  God  is  bearing  with  us 
beyond  what  we  ought  to  expect,  tliat  we  are,  so 
to  speak,  trespassing  on  His  kindness  and  good- 
will nearly  to  the  exhaustion  of  His  patience.  This 
English  double  word  has  been  changed  in  its  ap- 
plication since  the  translation  of  the  Bible  two 
hundred  and  eighty  years  ago;  then  it  had  a 
meaning  purely  and  singly  good,  that  of  kind- 
ness and  forbearance  without  implication  of  un- 
merited toleration  toward  a  sinful  person  or  sinful 
act ;  as  used  in  this  parable,  therefore,  it  has 
that  singly  good  meaning,  and,  in  fact,  it  has 
such  in  all  the  other  New  Testament  uses.  A 
good  example  of  this  is  shown  in  2  Peter  iii.  15 : 
"And  account  that  the  lono^  sufferino^  of  our  Lord 
is  salvation  ■'  ;  the  context  both  before  and  follow- 
ing this  passage  shows  Peter  as  addressing,  not  a 
church  that  was  provoking  God  by  inconsistent 
and  blameworthy  lives,  but  a  church  of  those 
chosen  ones  who  were  honouring  Him  ''in  all  holy 
living  and  godliness."  So  in  1  Peter  iii.  20  ;  God's 
plan  in  waiting  one  hundred  and  twenty  years 
was  full  of  broad,  generous  love  to  the  people  of 
!Noah's  time.  Maupos  has  the  meaning  of  large- 
ness in  all  directions — broad,  deep,  long  ;  dv/Ao?  is 
the  soul,  heart,  the  emotional  nature  as  contrasted 
on  one  side  with  nvav^a,  which  is  the  spiritual 
nature,   human   or   divine   (Green's   K.  T.   Syno- 


Revenge.  39 

nyms),  and  on  the  other  side  with  fvx^'h  which 
is  the  life  or  soul  common  to  man  and  irrational 
animals.  So  that  i.iaHf>odvf.iei,  thus  derived,  gives 
a  clear  perception  of  the  receptive,  all-embracing 
kindness  and  partiality  of  God  toward  His  chosen, 
and  it  is  the  only  right  word  here;  by  the  use  of 
any  other, such  as  fJsyaXoipiDxi^  or  f.ieya'Ko<j)po(jvv7], 
the  real  purport  would  not  have  been  indicated, 
for  these  "were  as  often  employed  with  a  bad  mean- 
ing (haughtiness,  intolerant  pride)  as  with  a  good. 
God  is  great-hearted,  broad-souled  toward  us  ;  ancf 
our  Master  takes  pains  to  affirm  this  fact  lest  we 
carry  our  parallel  too  far,  and  make  God  to  be  like 
the  judge  in  a  spiritual  way.  We  must  be  careful 
to  avoid  such  error ;  the  parable  deals  only  with 
the  judge's  motives  and  his  acts  as  resulting  from 
them ;  it  does  not  touch  upon  his  moral  qualities, 
nor  at  any  point  bring  them  into  likeness  with 
God's  attributes.  There  now  follows  the  assertion, 
twice  repeated,  that  God  is  and  will  be  working 
out  revenge  for  the  elect,  crying  unto  Him  day 
and  night  ;  7ron]Gei  denotes  sustained  effort 
(Green),  and  sustained  effort  by  an  omnipotent 
Father  must  bring  an  answer  speedily. 

The  resemblances  of  the  parable  having  now  been 
drawn,  we  mav  briefly  sum  up.  Suitors  in  a  court 
of  law  of  our  day  and  in  Western  lands  have  certain 
rights  and  acquire  a  certain  standing  there  by  rea- 
son of  their  citizenship.  These  rights  are  secured 
under  common  and  statute  law,  and  most  of  them 
are  set  forth  in  constitutions  and  bills  of  rights; 
by  them  the  humblest  citizen  is  fenced  about  with 
well-defined  safeguards  from  any  oppression,  from 


40  Four  Bible  studies, 

hindrance  or  refusal  on  the  part  of  the  officers  of 
the  law ;  and  he  is  always  sure  of  a  patient  hearing 
and  impartial  verdict  through  the  just  and  equita- 
ble procedures  in  our  courts.  In  contrast  to  this, 
an  Oriental  court  is  and  always  has  been  a  very 
nest  of  venality  ;  quoting  again  from  Doctor  Tris- 
tam  :  "  From  the  dawn  of  history  the  venality  of 
judges  and  the  miscarriage  of  justice  has  been  one 
of  the  chief  abominations  which  have  called  down 
the  indignant  remonstrances  of  prophets  and  holy 
men.  The  book  of  Job,  the  Psalms,  Proverbs, 
prophetical  writings,  the  Gospels  themselves,  are 
full  of  denunciation  of  unrighteous  judges.  Nor  is 
the  corruption  less  notorious  throughout  the  whole 
Eastern  world  at  the  present  day.  A  man  who, 
like  the  foully-murdered  Midhat  Pasha,  sternly 
refuses  bribes  on  the  judgment  seat,  is  still  looked 
upon  with  wonder  and  admiration.  This  character 
of  a  judge  is  indeed  contrary  to  our  impressions  of 
that  office  as  Ave  see  it  in  happier  Western  lands, 
where  public  opinion  bears  strongly  on  all  func- 
tionaries, and  Christianity  has  introduced  a  high 
standard  of  rectitude  ;  but  it  is  still  to  be  seen  in 
all  its  frightful  corruption  and  malignity  through- 
out the  whole  of  Asia."  The  unjust  judge  of  the 
Orient,  therefore,  is  and  was  of  this  rapacious  and 
sordid  character,  and  was  influenced  in  his  decisions 
by  one  of  two  considerations :  either,  and  most 
generally,  by  a  bribe,  or,  as  in  this  case  in  the 
parable,  occasionally  by  fear  of  certain  evil  conse- 
quences to  follow  upon  a  refusal  of  the  suitor's  ap- 
plication ;  in  either  case  no  question  of  right  had 
of  itself  any  weight,  no  plea  of  justice  bad  any 


Revenge.  41 

force ;  the  words  would  be  a  mockery  if  applied  to 
any  procedure  there. 

The  practice  in  the  prayer  court  of  our  Father  is 
constituted  upon  a  plan  corresponding  ethically  to 
that  of  the  court  of  the  unjust  judge.  We  have  no 
legal  standing  before  Him,  we  cannot  go  there  with 
birthright  citizenship  to  institute  any  suit,  we  have 
no  natural  bill  of  rights  on  which  to  base  any  de- 
mand, we  have  no  standing  there  to  sue  for  what 
is  just  and  equitable ;  all  pleas  advanced  on  such 
ground  are  thrown  out  at  once,  and  God  sees  noth- 
ing in  us  or  in  our  pleadings  deserving  of  a  mo- 
ment's consideration  on  the  basis  of  mere  justice ; 
before  His  bar  such  claims  are  valueless,  and  all 
our  righteousness  is  as  filthy  rags.  But  once  we 
have  become  His  chosen,  and  thus  approach  to 
ofiPer  our  suit  on  the  ground  of  personal  privilege 
and  favour,  with  no  plea  of  merit  or  desert  in  the 
case,  then  we  have  His  ready  ear ;  He  is  under  the 
bonds  of  a  solemn  covenant  which  He  cannot 
break,  and  under  peril  of  a  penalty  He  must  not 
incur,  to  grant  the  prayers  of  His  elect,  that  penalty 
being  the  demission  of  His  office  as  the  God  of  our 
love,  our  obedience  and  our  worship.  Thus,  under 
the  compulsion  of  His  loving  relation  with  us,  the 
ability  to  fulfil,  or  the  advisability  of  fulfilling  our 
prayers,  however  extravagant,  become  questions 
of  minor  importance  to  our  Almighty  God,  "  who 
is  able  to  do  exceeding  abundantly  above "  our 
prayers. 

On  account  of  their  peculiar  significance,  and  at 
the  risk  of  being  repetitious,  let  us  direct  attention 
to  two  or  three  points  already  alluded  to.     Why 


42  Four  Bible  Studies. 

did  our  Master  employ  the  verb  only  in  the  first 
part  of  the  parable  and  as  spoken  by  the  widow 
and  judge,  but  took  the  trouble,  in  His  application, 
to  say  of  God,  Ttonjaei  eudijajffiv^  using  the  verb 
and  the  noun  ?  For  surely  it  was  an  unnecessary 
trouble  if  those  two  words  meant  no  more  than 
iKdiKT^aei,  nor  can  it  be  said  in  any  w4se  that  the 
verb  and  noun  have  only  a  periphrastic  use  here, 
and  are  simply  equivalent  to  the  one  verb.  The 
many  uses  in  other  parts  of  the  New  Testament  of 
TzodoD  with  a  noun  directly  controvert  such  view  ; 
for  there  is  in  them  the  idea,  spiritual  or  otherwise 
as  the  case  may  be,  of  an  active  and  efficient  opera- 
tion. Good  examples  of  this  use  are  afforded  in 
Paul's  declarations  regarding  the  prayers  he  was 
offering  for  those  to  whom  he  was  writing ;  as 
in  Eom.  i.  9,  Eph.  i.  16,  Phil.  i.  4,  1  Thess.  i.  2, 
Philem.  4.  In  these  the  participle  and  noun 
too-ether,  "  makino^  mention,"  have  an  intensive 
force  far  beyond  what  the  participle  "mentioning" 
alone  would  have  ;  they  imply  a  fixed  and  continu- 
ino-  custom,  a  settled  and  forceful  habit  with  Paul 
of  praying  for  those  he  was  so  diligently  instruct- 
ing; yet,  in  the  English  translation  of  this  parable 
the  verb  "  avenge "  is  alone  used  in  all  four  in- 
stances, and  so  the  grand  significance  of  the  con- 
tinuous and  persistent  "working  out"  of  revenge 
by  our  Father  for  His  chosen  is  utterly  suppressed 
and  put  out  of  sight. 

Again,  expositors  have  always  applied  endim^aiz 
as  here  meaning  only  dinii,  but  a  close  study  of  all 
the  uses  of  dimj  and  8maio^  and  diuaiovv  and 
diHaiGDjua,  on  the  one  hand,  and  of  endinsiv  and 


iterenge.  '       48 

8hSlu7](ji^^  on  the  other  hand,  will  show  a  clear-cut 
difference  and  distinction  in  usage  in  all  places 
except  two  or  three  Avhere  these  words  occur  in 
both  Xew  Testament  and  Septuagint ;  Justice  and 
Right  are  plainly  and  exclusively  indicated  by  diurjy 
while  Revenge  and  Retribution,  without  regard  to 
any  measure  or  limitation  of  either,  are  as  clearly 
indicated  by  euSija^ffi?. 

And  now,  in  reviewing,  we  may  draw  out  on 
parallel  lines  the  likenesses  of  our  Heavenly  Father 
to  the  unjust  judge  : 

The  judge  was  an  autocrat.  Our  Father  is  all-powerful. 

There  was  no  pretence  of  right  No  right  inheres  with  us  to  ask 
in  the  widow's  request.  God  for  anything. 

The  widow,  because  she  was  a  God's  chosen  stand  before  Ilim 
widow,  had  a  peculiar  privi-  on  the  ground  of  privilege 
lege  of  coming.  and  favour. 

The  judge  granted  the  widow's  Our  Father  grants  our  prayers 
prayer  from  fear  of  conse-  under  forfeiture  of  our  obedi- 
quences  to  himself.  ence,  love,  and  loyalty. 

The  judge  could  execute  his  Our  Father  grants  our  prayers 
decree  forthwith.  speedily. 

It  is  thus  plainly  apparent  that  this  parable 
deals  with  no  questions  of  right  or  justice  touch- 
ing our  intercourse  with  God.  For  if  He  were  only 
just.  He  would  be  bound  strictly  by  the  ordinary 
laws  of  moral  cause  and  effect  as  we  understand 
them  ;  His  acts  would  be  circumscribed  in  scope  by 
those  laws,  just  as  there  are  right  rules  governing 
the  acts  of  a  righteous  earthly  judge  in  these 
modern  times.  God  never  could  overstep  those 
laws;  and  we  never  could  ask  Him  to  do  so.     Fur- 


44  Four  Bible  Studies. 

thermore,  ^Ye  must  alwaj^s  know  what  it  is  right 
and  just  to  ask  of  Him,  and  that  would  imply 
eitlier  tlie  possession  of  divine  omniscience,  or  else 
the  tacit  and  offensive  assertion  that  we  are  rightly 
deserving  of  what  we  ask. 

If  the  lesson  of  the  parable  were  that  God  does 
but  justly  in  answer  to  praj^er,  then  it  would  need 
to  be  entirely  reconstructed,  and  should  read  after 
this  manner :  "  In  a  certain  city  there  was  a  judge 
just  and  upright,  fearing  God  and  regarding  man ; 
and  a  widow  of  that  city  came  to  him,  saying, 
'Do  justice  for  me  against  my  adversary';  and 
after  waiting  a  while  in  order  to  enjoy  her  en- 
treaties, and  also  that  her  trust  in  his  ability  and 
good-will  might  be  well  developed  and  strength- 
ened, he  did  as  she  wished ;  he  called  the  widow 
and  her  adversary  both  before  him,  heard  patiently 
both  sides  of  the  case,  and  gave  his  decision  in 
accordance  with  equity  and  fairness.  In  this  way 
God  answers  our  prayers ;  He  limits  Himself  by 
set  rules,  and  will  not  go  beyond  them,  and  is  not 
moved  even  to  do  right  until  after  a  '  continual 
coming,'  after  much  importunity  and  clamour. 
Thus  do  we  exercise  our  faith,  and  it  is  such  faith 
He  expects  to  find  on  earth  at  His  coming." 
Such  would  be  the  lesson  perfectly  consistent 
with  such  a  parable ;  it  fits  every  wa}^  but  it  is 
a  most  absurd  misfit  when  applied  to  the  parable 
of  the  unjust  judge.  To  obtain  it  from  the  latter 
many  of  the  terms  must,  as  we  have  seen,  be  per- 
verted or  nullified ;  one  of  the  characters  must  be 
misrepresented  as  asking  for  what  she  did  not 
want,  and  the  parabolic  quality  must  be  destroyed 


Revenge.  45 

in  making  the  application  from  the  other  character 
by  contrast  and  not  by  likeness. 

That  so  many  of  the  words  and  phrases  of  this 
parable  should  have  been  thus  weakly  and  inade- 
quately rendered  into  English,  would  seem  some- 
what strange  ;  for  there  are  no  other  such  and  so 
many  instances  in  all  the  ^N'ew  Testament  within  so 
small  a  space ;  and  yet  it  will  not  appear  so  unac- 
countable if  we  keep  it  in  view  that  the  trans- 
lators three  hundred  years  ago  would  have  had  in 
mind  ''importunity"  as  the  lesson  convej^ed  by  the 
parable,  and  that,  as  predicated  upon  this,  they  were 
bound  to  so  render  the  words  into  English  as  that 
they  should  conform  with,  or  at  least  be  not  repug- 
nant to,  such  a  lesson.  Of  this  case,  therefore, 
as  of  the  case  of  dvalSia  in  "  The  Friend  at 
Midnight,"  it  may  be  said  that  new  meanings  for 
the  Greek-English  lexicon  were  originated  through 
this  necessity  for  confirming  or  establishing  an 
interpretation  then  and  ever  since  believed  to  be  the 
true  one,  but  which  we  have  now  tried  to  show  is 
erroneous  ;  so  that  the  exegesis  was  not  at  all  deter- 
mined by  the  real  meanings  and  tenor  of  the  words 
as  employed  under  Greek  usage  at  the  time  Luke 
recorded  them. 

We  come  now  to  the  crown  and  capstone  of  the 
parable  in  the  momentous  question :  "  Neverthe- 
less, when  the  Son  of  Man  cometh,  shall  He  iiiid 
faith  on  the  earth  I  "  It  is  generally  passed  by  as 
of  little  moment,  or  is  treated  often  as  a  graceful 
round-up  of  the  parable,  but  nowhere  between  the 
covers  of  the  Bible  has  one  been  placed  of  more 
solemn   import;   and    its   strong   significance   has 


46  Four  Bible  Studies. 

been  all  frittered  away  and  dissipated  under  the 
weak  and  watery  interpretation  of  "  importunity  "  ; 
as  if  the  lesson  were  only  "  clamour,"  an  indefinite 
continuance  in  begging,  a  teasing  of  God  till  He 
gets  tired  and  answers  merely  to  get  rid  of  us ; 
as  if  there  was  required  a  certain  amount  of  noisy 
entreaty  to  move  Him;  as  if  we  were  to  ding 
our  prayers  into  His  ears,  and,  like  the  heathen, 
think  we  will  be  heard  for  our  much  speaking ! ! 
Far  above  all  such  low  views,  the  precious  lesson 
summons  us  to  the  glorious  faith  and  trust  that 
God  is  ever  lovingly  near  us,  so  devoted  to  us 
under  the  terms  of  our  covenant  with  Him  that  He 
can  never  refuse  anything  to  His  chosen,  and  would 
never  if  He  could.  Here  do  we  surely  know  that 
thej^  who  wait  on  the  Lord  shall  not  want  any 
good  thing.  Here  is  revealed  the  kind  of  faith 
that  our  Lord  is  in  doubt  about  finding  on  the 
earth  at  His  coming ;  faith  in  exercising  our  privi- 
leges as  His  chosen  ;  faith  in  asking  extravagantly 
and  boundlessly  ;  faith  that  He,  in  thus  covenant- 
ing, has  deliberately  and  graciously  put  from  Him- 
self all  choice  in  the  case  and  is  compelled  to  give 
answer  ;  faith  that  men  will,  down  through  all  the 
ages,  so  put  in  practice  the  lesson  of  this  priceless 
parable  that  they  will  always  pray  and  not  faint. 


PRxlYER. 

James  v.  16,  IT,  18. 

There  stands  out  from  tlie  main  form  of  our  Old 
Testament  Scripture  a  notable  example  of  success- 
ful pra3^er,  a  prayer  offered  with  sincerest  desire 
for  God's  glory  and  the  enthronement  of  Ilis  right- 
eousness in  the  hearts  of  erring  men,  but  with  most 
mistaken  estimate  of  the  right  means  and  method 
for  promoting  it.  The  contest  between  Elijah,  the 
clear-hearted,  sincere  man  of  God,  and  Ahab,  the 
wicked  king  of  Israel,  offers  the  occasion  for  an 
interesting  stud}^  of  the  subject  of  prayer. 

The  earnest  prophet  had  earnestly  prayed  God 
to  Avithhold  rain  and  dew  until  such  time  as  he 
(Elijah)  should  desire  their  return.  It  is  not  diffi- 
cult to  understand  the  course  of  reasonino-  which 
had  brought  the  prophet  to  this  conclusion.  After 
the  death  of  good  Asa  a  succession  of  wicked 
kings  sat  on  the  throne,  each  more  vile  than  his 
predecessor,  until  the  culmination  of  all  infamy  had 
come  in  the  persons  of  Ahab  and  his  heathen  wife, 
Jezebel.  AVliat  was  to  become  of  God's  chosen 
people  if  this  awful  downward  course  of  corruption 
was  held  ?  This  was  the  problem  weighing  heavily 
on  Elijah's  heart;  he  was  very  jealous  for  the  Lord 
God  of  Hosts,  and  whatever  measure  human  wit 
could  devise  to  arrest  this  portentous  slide  into  per- 
dition ought  to  be  adopted  and  put  in  force  at  once. 
The  disease  had  fast  hold  of  the  people  at  the  very 


48  Four  Bible  Studies. 

vitals  of  their  spiritual  life ;  and  any  remed}^,  to  be 
effective,  must  be  of  heroic  nature,  and  be  put  with 
no  delay  into  heroic  practice.  It  must  be  one  to 
take  hold  on  all  the  people ;  for,  through  the  de- 
grading worship  of  the  vile  god  Baal  and  the  viler 
goddess  Ashtoreth,  the  people  were  rapidly  sinking 
into  the  foul  pit  of  a  beastly  sensuality.  Their 
land,  so  smiling  and  fruitful  everywhere,  must  be 
stricken  ;  life  must  be  made  hard  to  them  and  not 
easy  ;  the  labour  of  w^atering  the  soil  for  their  crops 
must  be  added  to  the  ordinary  work  of  cultivation  ; 
in  place  of  ease  and  plenty,  the  earth  must  yield 
only  scanty  returns  to  severe  labour;  the  people 
would  then  have  little  or  no  time  for  resort  to  the 
groves  or  to  the  House  of  Baal  in  Samaria,  a  place 
abominable  for  indulgence  in  the  worship  and 
licentious  rites  instituted  by  Ahab,  "  whom  Jezebel 
his  wafe  stirred  up."  Such  sore  affliction  would 
also  bring  the  peo])le  to  better  thoughts ;  they 
w^ould  remember  the  broken  law  of  their  righteous 
God,  and  would  live  again  under  the  pure  and  hal- 
lowing influences  of  those  ceremonial  rites  insti- 
tuted by  Moses  and  faithfully  observed  by  their 
fathers  during  many  generations.  Surely,  under 
the  weight  of  so  great  suffering  their  souls  would 
be  softened  and  penitent,  they  would  forsake  their 
wicked  waj^s  and  seek  the  Lord  Jehovah,  and  He 
would  be  favourably  entreated  of  them  and  would 
turn  their  hearts  back  again.  So,  heedless  of  any 
personal  danger  to  result  from  the  wrath  of  Jeze- 
bel, Elijah  boldly  goes  to  Ahab  and  announces  the 
commencement  of  a  drought  that  is  to  continue  as 
long  as  Elijah  shall  require. 


Prayer.  49 

But  he  soon  found  how  sadly  he  had  miscalcu- 
lated the  inliuences  of  adversity  upon  such  a  people 
whom  he  would  save,  as  it  Avere,  in  spite  of  them- 
selves. Misfortunes  and  hard  afflictions  have,  in. 
themselves,  no  salvatory  power  ;  they  may  serve  as 
fingers  on  a  guide-post,  pointing  out  the  right  path 
at  the  parting  of  the  ways,  but  still  the  rebellious 
heart  has  its  own  choice  of  route,  and  may  keep 
straight  on  in  the  path  to  destruction.  Under  the 
desperate  control  and  counsel  of  Jezebel,  Elijah  had 
been  sino^led  out  by  Ahab  to  be  hunted  down  like 
a  wild  beast,  and  all  prophets  of  the  Lord  whom 
the  Obadiahs  could  not  hide  and  nourish  were  put 
to  the  sword.  As  the  drought  v;as  prolonged,  and 
its  bitter  effects  brought  greater  sutfering,  so  grew 
the  hate  of  that  hardened  woman,  the  real  ruler  of 
Israel ;  and  Jehovah's  special  care  was  over  Elijah, 
to  save  him  from  her  unceasing  search  in  Samaria 
and  neighbouring  countries.  At  length,  as  three 
and  a  half  years  of  famine  had  now  prevailed, 
and  there  were  no  signs  of  any  change  in  the 
hearts  of  the  people,  no  turning  away  from  the 
idols  and  idol  worship  they  had  learned  to  love, 
the  conclusion  must  have  forced  itself  upon  Elijah 
that,  after  all,  this  famine  policy  was  a  failure ; 
and  he  began  to  see  that  adversity  does  not  of 
itself  foster  virtuous  feelings  and  resolves  ;  that 
disaster  coming  upon  men's  temporal  affairs  never 
softens  their  stubborn  wills  to  make  them  love  sin 
any  the  less,  or  to  break  the  chains  that  bind  them 
to  their  lusts.  On  the  contrary,  he  had  seen  the 
deo:radation  month  after  month  becomino:  more 
prevalent,  so  that  to  all  appearance  the  people 
4 


50  Four  Bible  Studies. 

were  ripe  for  an  utter  forsaking  of  the  true  God, 
had  forgotten  the  teachings  of  their  fathers  and  the 
stern  lessons  of  Sodom  and  Gomorrah,  and  would, 
wholly  embrace  the  idolatry  of  Baal  with  all  its 
train  of  abominations. 

In  this  view,  the  one  thing  now  to  do  was  to  call 
on  Jehovah  for  restoration  of  the  rain  ;  but,  before 
that,  he  would  make  a  last  effort  to  arrest  the 
people's  attention,  to  vindicate  the  omnipotence 
of  God,  and  to  demonstrate  beyond  question  His 
supremacy  over  Baal ;  perhaps,  after  such  demon- 
stration, they  might  turn  and  repent,  might  throw 
off  the  yoke  of  wicked  Ahab  and  choose  one  who 
^vould  rule  rig-hteouslv  and  in  the  fear  of  God.  So 
we  may  believe  that  in  prayer  to  Jehovah  he 
spread  before  Him  the  plan  of  the  gathering  on 
Carmel,  the  two  altars  and  the  miracle  of  sacrifice 
by  Heaven's  fire  ;  and  that  God  granted  his  prayer 
and  promised  performance  of  His  own  part  in  it. 
We  need  not  rehearse  the  grand,  but  familiar  story  ; 
the  fire  fell,  the  sacrifice  was  consumed,  and  then 
the  people  could  not  but  shout,  "  The  Lord  Je- 
hovah, He  is  the  God  !"  Elijah  was  weak  enough 
(we  might  say  he  would  have  been  almost  more 
than  mortal  not)  to  take  advantage  of  this  oppor- 
tune moment  for  the  use  of  a  resistless  power  thus 
suddenly  given.  The  love  of  despotism  is  ingrained 
in  the  Oriental  heart,  and.  the  temptation  to  make 
this  a  temporal  and  not  a  spiritual  success  was 
altoofether  too  o'reat.  "  Down  to  the  Kishon  with 
these  vile  prophets  of  Baal,  QYery  one  of  them  ! 
Let  their  severed  heads  dam  uj^  its  waters  and 
their   blood   redden    its   rushing   tide!"      Foolish 


Prayer.  51 

man !  In  place  of  permitting  those  four  hundred 
to  live  to  become  the  objects  of  derision  and  con- 
tempt, and  the  name  of  Baal  a  byword  and 
hissing  in  every  border  of  Israel,  he  must  needs 
make  martyrs  of  them,  and  thus  give  a  false  glory 
and  greater  exaltation  to  that  detestable  idolatry 
in  whose  service  they  had  died. 

Thus  the  o-ood  influence  of  the  frrand  miracle 
was  quickly  dissipated,  and  the  newly-awakened 
loyalty  toward  Jehovah  was  overborne  and 
drowned  in  the  savage  cries  of  Jezebel  and  her 
followers  for  a  full  requital  of  this  wanton 
slaughter.  The  heavy  wrath  of  that  infuriate 
woman  is  now  in  dire  pursuit  of  Elijah  ;  he  must 
flee  in  hot  haste  to  a  strong  and  secret  place 
among  the  munitions  of  rocks  in  Iloreb.  There, 
at  leno^th,  the  sad  lesson  of  his  mistaken  course 
is  brought  home  to  him.  He  had  been  trying 
to  teach  the  people  by  famine,  by  miracle,  by 
slaughter  ;  and  now  the  Lord  Jehovah,  dealing 
with  him  after  a  like  manner,  would  lovingly  teach 
a  new  lesson  to  His  devoted  servant  through  the 
exhibition  of  certain  violences  in  nature  correspond- 
ing to  the  moral  violences  Elijah  had  employed. 
The  parable  of  the  earthquake,  the  tempest,  and 
the  fire  was  easy  to  understand  when  the  Lord 
had,  after  them,  sent  the  still,  small  voice.  Let  us 
now  clearly  understand  the  character  of  Elijah. 
He  was  large-hearted,  but  narrow-minded ;  he  Avas 
a  man  of  one  idea ;  while  he  Avas  wholly  consecrate 
and  given  up  in  every  fibre  of  his  being  to  the 
service  of  his  Lord,  yet  with  all  this  entire  devo- 
tion he   was  not  of   broad  mental   view,  did  not 


52  Four  Bible  Studies. 

take  pains  to  inform  himself  of  all  facts  and  cir- 
cumstances bearing  on  his  work,  and,  as  he  thus 
went  in  ignorance  of  facts,  he  was  unprepared  to 
meet  events  with  that  full  wisdom  and  thorough 
dealing  possible  only  to  those  who  are  completely 
informed  and  have  accurate  gauge  of  affairs  and 
of  the  men  concerned  in  them.  And  if  it  were  not 
irreverent,  we  might  here  write  that  our  Heavenly 
Father  would  appear  to  have  a  "  weak  side "  to- 
ward men  of  this  sort ;  they  endear  themselves 
very  greatly  to  Him  by  their  intense  devotion  and 
earnest  faith,  while  they  are  also  erratic,  of  narrow 
view,  egotistic,  and  opinionated.  Such  were  David, 
"  the  man  after  God's  own  heart,"  Peter,  Job,  and 
others  who  might  be  named. 

There  in  Horeb  were  the  time  and  place  for  the 
lesson  to  be  taught  Elijah ;  the  disappointed  and 
humiliated  man  confesses  his  overthrow  ;  all  he  has 
done  and  all  God  has  done  through  him  has  gone 
for  nothing ;  life  is  even  a  burden  to  him ;  he  had 
sought  to  do  a  grand  thing,  to  turn  a  whole  people 
from  sin  and  idolatrj^  to  goodness  and  true  wor- 
ship, and  had  utterly  failed  ;  he  had  tried  to  make 
men  good  in  outward  appearance  and  by  outward 
pressure,  with  no  reckoning  of  those  interior  and 
spiritual  forces  under  which  alone  the  life  can 
be  redeemed  from  corruption.  The  Lord  gently 
calls  and  asks,  "  What  doest  thou  here,  Elijah  ? " 
and  the  ignorant  and  therefore  conceited  prophet 
mournfully  replies,  "  I  have  been  very  jealous  for 
the  Lord  God  of  Hosts  ;  I,  even  I,  only  am  left." 
Until  told  b}^  Obadiah,  Elijah  had  not  known  that 
one  hundred  prophets  Avere  hid  away ;  nor  had  he 


Prayer,  58 

tried  to  find  if  any  were  3^et  left  in  Israel  who  had 
not  bowed  the  knee  to  Baal,  whether  seven  thou- 
sand or  seven  hundred  or  seventy  or  seven ;  "  I, 
even  I,  only  am  left,  a  prophet  of  the  Lord."  Ah, 
Elijah,  what  if,  in  place  of  using  the  lash  of  famine, 
you  had  reflected  that  there  might  possibly  be 
others  who  yet  loved  and  served  Jehovah,  had  en- 
deavoured to  know  these  hidden  ones,  had  secretly 
visited  them,  cheered  and  instructed  them,  had 
encouraged  them  with  some  of  the  intrepidity  of 
your  own  soul ;  thus  might  the  still,  small  voice  of 
the  Spirit  of  God  have  done  His  quiet  and  effective 
work  through  these  upon  all  the  estranged  hearts 
of  Israel.  You  could  not  then  have  any  the  more 
incurred  the  hate  of  Jezebel,  and  God  would  not  any 
the  less  have  protected  you  from  her  vengeance  ;  so 
through  the  dark  time  of  oppression  would  have 
been  secretly  kept  and  nurtured  the  nucleus  of  a 
faithful  party  that  at  the  opportune  moment  might 
have  overturned  the  throne  of  Ahab  and  set  in  full 
rule  a  just  and  impartial  prince. 

"  Not  by  might,  nor  by  power,  but  by  my  Spirit, 
saith  the  Lord  of  Hosts."  Not  by  famine  in 
Samaria,  nor  by  tempest  rending  the  rocks  of 
Iloreb ;  not  by  sacrificial  miracle  on  Carmel,  nor 
by  earthquake  in  the  mount  of  God  ;  not  by  slaugh- 
ter at  the  Kishon,  nor  by  fire  crumbling  the  gra- 
nitic masses  of  Sinai,  is  the  glorious  reign  of  our 
Jehovah  to  be  established  in  the  souls  of  men. 
God  is  in  none  of  these.  They  are  things  to  terrify, 
but  never  to  convince  ;  to  cower,  but  never  to  turn 
back  the  hearts  of  the  wayward  and  rebellious. 
The  Spirit  of  All  Grace,  in  all  ages  freely  given,  is 


54  Four  Bible  Studies, 

the  mighty  and  secret  force  working  wider  and 
more  lasting  results  than  would  all  the  wonders 
and  terrors  of  Carmel  and  Sinai.  Elijah,  head- 
strong and  ignorant,  was  impatient  of  the  slow  and 
hidden  movements  of  God  ;  expecting  success  in 
outward  demonstration,  he  was  ever  looking  for  it 
through  and  in  the  natural  things,  seen  and  tem- 
poral, and  taking  little  thought  of  the  spiritual 
thing's,  unseen  and  eternal.  Yet  how  God  loved 
hini  through  all !  loved  him  for  his  pure  courage 
and  lofty  zeal,  for  his  single-hearted  loyalty  and 
devotion  ;  loved  him  so  well  that  at  the  last  He 
would  not  let  him  know  any  pangs  of  mortal  dis- 
solution, but  carried  him  undying  to  heaven,  and 
in  a  Avay  Elijah  best  would  like,  by  a  whirlwind 
with  horses  and  chariot  of  fire. 

Before  turning  from  this  aspect  of  the  subject, 
we  may  express  the  hope — nay,  more,  our  assur- 
ance— that  Elijah,  in  the  better  world  to  which  that 
chariot  bore  him,  has  broader  vision  and  deeper 
insight  into  spiritual  and  heavenly  forces  than  he 
had  at  Carmel  and  Horeb.  Full  proof  of  this  is 
involved  in  the  fact  that  about  nine  hundred  years 
later  God  sent  him  down  to  the  Mount  of  Trans- 
fig-uration  to  cheer  and  comfort  the  sorrowino^  and 
despondent  Son  of  Man ;  and  as  he  with  Moses 
spake  with  Him  concerning  the  decease  He  was  to 
accomplish  at  Jerusalem,  it  must  have  been  out  of 
the  experiences  of  his  own  earthly  life  that  Elijah 
sought  to  fortify  the  human  heart  of  our  Saviour, 
and  to  assure  Him  that  the  Spirit  of  His  God 
would  watcli  over  and  keep  Him  through  all  the 
dark  and  bitter  experiences  of  the  coming  death. 


Prayer,  55 

never  to  leave  His  soul  in  hell  nor  suffer  Tlis  Holy 
One  to  see  corruption.  The  promise  and  potency 
of  the  resurrection  life  were  demonstrated  to  our 
Lord  in  the  persons  of  these  two  men ;  and  as 
Jesus,  '*  the  angel  who  was  with  Moses  in  the  bush, 
and  Avitli  the  church  in  the  wilderness,"  the  spirit- 
ual rock  of  His  people,  had  supplied  them  in  the 
wilderness  and  afterward  with  spiritual  drink,  so 
now  these  leaders  of  that  people  He  had  so  loved 
and  nurtured  came  to  call  these  former  things  to 
His  i^emembrance,  and  to  assure  His  heart,  op- 
pressed with  the  Jieavy  task  of  the  world's  redemp- 
tion, and  ready  to  doubt  His  own  strength  to  abide 
the  awful  issue,  that  the  same  God  who  had  raised 
them  up  would  also  nojv  raise  up  His  Own  Beloved 
Son.  I^o  one  of- narrow  mind,  possessed  of  igno- 
rance and  conceit,  with  any  remnant  of  earthly 
failings  and  frailties,  could  have  been  selected  for 
such  momentous  mission  ;  EHjali  on  the  glorious 
mount  had  none  of  these  ;  he  had  been  changed, 
as  we  (blessed  thought)  will  also,  in  that  day^  be 
changed,  "  in  a  moment,  in  the  twinkling  of  an  eye." 
Let  us  now  see  wherefore  and  wherein  this  his- 
tory of  Elijah  "was  written  aforetime  for  our 
learning,  that  we  through  patience  and  comfort  of 
the  Scriptures  might  have  hope."  James  has  set 
it  forth  and  summed  it  up  in  few  words:  "The 
supplication  of  a  righteous  man  availeth  much  in 
its  working."  Elijah,  a  man  of  like  passions  with 
us,  intensely  fervent  and  zealous,  but  also  intensely 
narrow  and  self-sufficient,  prayed  God  for  the 
awful  visitation  of  famine ;  lie  little  knew  what  he 
asked  for,  nor  in  how  wide-reaching  measure  the 


56  Four  Bible  Studies. 

sufferino^  he  sono-ht  to  bririf]:  on  the  o^uiltv  followers 
of  Baal  was  to  involve  the  happiness  and  lives  of 
faithful  thousands  in  Israel.  He  knew  not  of  the 
seven  thousand  who  had  not  bowed  the  knee  to 
Baal,  and  so,  culpably  ignorant,  he  made  the  gross 
mistake  of  invoking  misery  on  those  multitudes  of 
the  innocent  and  helpless.  But  God  heard  the 
prayer  of  His  earnest  but  ill-judging  servant ;  He 
sent  the  famine,  yet  He  cared  for  and  preserved  the 
seven  thousand  faithful  ;  His  arm  was  not  short- 
ened that  it  could  not  save  them,  even  while  He 
was  giving  full  effect  to  Elijah's  prayer.  We 
are  not  to  judge  God,  and  His  ability  to  do,  by 
any  human  standards ;  He  was  able  to  do  for 
His  chosen  people  then  as  He  is  to-day  for  us, 
"  above  all  they  could  ask  or  thinlv  "  ;  He  could  give 
full  scope  to  the  operation  of  Elijah's  extravagant 
petition,  and  yet  save  harmless  the  loyal  and  de- 
voted among  the  people.  The  Apostle  refers  to 
Elijah's  prayer  as  that  of  a  righteous  man,  not  of 
a  self-righteous  but  one  righteous  before  God, 
and  declares  that  such  a  praj^er  ''  availeth  much." 
Elijah's  prayer  resulted  in  a  line  of  events  he  did 
not  anticipate ;  God  worked  it  out  in  a  totally 
different  Avay  and  for  higher  ends  than  those  Elijah 
had  proposed  ;  for  it  stands  forth  one  of  the  most 
striking  episodes  in  the  record  of  His  dealings  with 
men,  and  is  one  of  those  eminently  "  written  for 
our  admonition,  upon  whom  the  ends  of  the  world 
are  come  "  ;  so  that  from  it  we  may  safely  draw 
the  lesson  that  our  pra^^ers,  though  offered  from 
erring  hearts,  dictated  hy  fallible  judgment,  and 
expectant  of  unwarranted  results  (according  to  any 


Prayer.  57 

human  estimate),  ma}^  yet — yes,  will — be  received 
and  answered.  JNot  in  any  manner,  however,  to 
vindicate  our  fallacious  thought,  nor  to  make  Infi- 
nite Wisdom  wait  as  a  servant  on  our  imperfect 
minds  and  wills ;  but  our  All-Seeing  God  brings 
forth  the  consummation  in  Ills  own  way  and  after 
a  manner  far  above  our  thouoht. 

Prayer  is  a  gracious  boon  and  a  high  privilege; 
but  it  has  fallen  into  a  low  estate  under  the  teach- 
ing and  practice  of  many  in  the  Christian  world  ; 
"  earnest  prayer  "  is  an  expression  often  heard,  and 
too  often  is  spoken  as  if  meaning  mere  repetition 
of  the  same  prayer.  The  Lord's  Prayer  is  a  model 
for  brevity,  variety,  and  terseness,  and  for  the  all- 
embracing  scope  of  its  themes  ;  from  it,  as  a  model, 
may  we  not  learn  that  repetition  or  importunity 
about  the  same  things  is  not  iieedful  with  nor 
acceptable  to  our  faithful  Hearer  of  prayer?  In 
fact,  may  we  not,  in  intercourse  with  God,  act  by 
the  same  plain,  clear  rules  of  common  sense  that 
actuate  us  in  intercourse  with  our  fellow-men  ? 
Business  men  make  the  largest  transactions  by 
use  of  the  fewest  possible  words.  Two  friends 
meet ;  an  interchange  of  thought  on  some  subject 
takes  place ;  it  is  found  that  one  can  render  the 
other  some  pleasant  and  easy  service;  it  is  asked 
for,  the  promise  is  given,  the  service  is  rendered ; 
all  this  with  very  few  words.  In  such  agreeable 
ways,  ever  closely  bordering  on  taciturnity,  are  all 
affairs  of  our  social  and  business  life  regulated ;  we 
understand  each  other  almost  intuitively.  We  may 
well  consider  that  God,  if  our  lives  are  such  as  to 
endear  us  to  Him,  has  toward  us  an  understand- 


58  Four  Bible  studies. 

ing  equally  good,  and  needing  as  little  speaking  on 
our  part ;  surely,  it  cannot  be  required  of  us  to  go 
over  the  same  thing  with  Him  in  our  prayers  time 
after  time.  If  we  were  to  go  to  an  earthly  friend 
repeatedly  about  something  already  discussed  once 
and  agreed  upon,  would  he  not  soon  come  to  think 
it  a  sort  of  persecution,  a  needless  bother,  a  puerile 
trifling ;  and,  if  continued  long,  would  he  not  deem 
it  an  insulting  and  wanton  doubt  of  his  sincerity? 
And  wh\^  should  not  the  case  be  so  with  our 
Heavenly  Father,  who  can  understand  us  and  all 
our  thouo'hts  lono^  before  we  utter  them  ?  It  should 
be  kept  in  mind  that  prayer  is  treated  of  in  this 
paper  in  its  most  limited  and  legitimate  meaning, 
as  entreaty,  supplication  ;  we  may  often  speak  with 
God  in  secret  to  tell  Him  of  our  loyalty,  love,  and 
delight  in  His  service ;  such  intercourse  is  properly 
to  be  termed,  not  prayer,  but  communion. 

In  the  summer  of  the  year  1893  there  prevailed 
over  a  certain  district  in  the  State  of  Indiana  a  long 
and  severe  drought.  Two  deacons  living  in  that 
district  on  farms  not  far  apart,  by  chance  met  one 
morning  on  the  highway  and  began  exchanging 
views  in  regard  to  the  weather  and  the  prospect 
for  crops.  They  agreed  that  the  drought  threatened 
their  total  destruction,  that  rain  must  come  soon  to 
secure  even  a  half  crop ;  they  agreed  that  only  God 
could  give  it,  and,  if  given,  it  must  be  in  answer  to 
prayer.  Eemembering  that  "If  two  of  you  shall 
agree  as  touching  anything  they  shall  ask,  it  shall 
be  done  for  them  of  My  Father  who  is  in  heaven," 
they  knelt  down  where  they  were  and  offered  their 
prayer  for  the  rain  to  save  their  own   and    their 


Prayer.  59 

neighbours'  crops.  Some  months  before  this,  there 
passed  over  the  country  a  party  of  prospectors  look- 
ing for  indications  of  natural  gas ;  on  the  farm  of 
one  of  these  deacons  appearances  on  the  surface 
seemed  to  justify  a  belief  in  the  presence  of  gas 
below ;  so,  after  an  arrangement  made  with  the 
owner  in  case  of  their  finding  it,  they  brought  on 
the  machinery,  erected  a  derrick,  and  sank  the  Avell. 
They  had  bored  and  driven  the  pipe  by  this  time 
far  down,  but  no  signs  had  appeared  of  the  gas, 
and  at  length  discouraged,  they  had  given  up  hope 
and  had  begun  to  draw  out  the  pipe ;  it  was  slow 
and  tedious  work,  each  successive  section  coming 
up  with  a  harder  pull ;  the  last  length  of  pipe  had 
been  reached  and  fastened  to,  but  the  power  of  the 
engine  seemed  inadequate  to  loosen  it ;  one  last 
trial  was  attempted  with  full  pressure  of  steam, 
when  suddenly  there  came  an  upward  rush  of  a 
black,  foul  fluid  belching  out  and  far  up  with  an 
energy  that  overturned  the  derrick  and  wrecked 
the  machinery.  In  a  few  minutes  this  fountain 
ran  clear,  and  was  seen  to  be  pure  cold  water, 
and  it  did  not  cease  its  outflow  night  or  day. 
As  the  country  for  a  wide  distance  around  was 
quite  or  nearly  flat,  with  no  actively  flowing 
stream  to  drain  it,  this  water  soon  covered  and 
flooded  it,  so  that  the  ungodly  and  infidel  neigh- 
bours of  these  deacons  Avere  roundly  cursing  them 
on  account  of  their  prayers ;  for  this  outburst 
of  the  water  took  place  on  the  same  da}^  and  a 
few  hours  after  the  deacons  had  offered  up  their 
prayer ;  all  farms  were  under  water,  and  what 
little  crop  there  had  seemed  a   prior   promise   of 


60  Four  Bible  Studies. 

was  utterly  ruined,  drowned  out  before  the  hole 
could  be  capped  over  and  the  fountain  brought 
under  control.  God  does  not  answer  us  as  we 
ask,  nor  by  the  methods  we  think  lie  ought  to; 
nothing  could  have  been  further  from  the  minds 
of  those  deacons  than  that  kind  of  response  from 
Him ;  they  had  asked  for  rain  to  save  their  crops, 
and  a  flood  had  been  sent  which  completely  killed 
them.  But  those  deacons  will  never  need  to  pray 
for  rain  again ;  with  irrigating  pipes  and  channels 
laid  out  from  that  fountain,  the  crops  will  never 
fail  for  themselves  and  their  children  to  the  re- 
motest generation. 

Lastly,  let  it  be  said  that  our  praj^ers  must  always 
be  offered  upon  the  expressed  or  tacit  condition  of 
subjection  to  God's  will.  In  this  regard  our  Sav- 
iour's prayer  in  Gethsemane  is  the  one  most  beauti- 
ful and  precious  example :  "  If  it  be  possible,  let 
this  cup  pass  from  me,  nevertheless,  not  as  I  will, 
but  as  Thou  wilt."  If  our  Lord  had  not  uttered 
this  last  sentence,  God  would  doubtless  have  an- 
swered His  prayer  and  let  the  cup  pass,  and  thus 
the  world's  redemption  would  have  been  omitted  or 
postponed  !  The  former  case,  how  awful  to  con- 
template !  and  in  the  latter  case,  to  what  year  or 
day  the  redemption  would  have  been  postponed, 
what  mortal  tongue  ma  v  tell  ? 

Finally,  what  ample  warrant,  what  complete  as- 
surance have  we  for  using  this  privilege  in  fullest 
measure,  to  pray  without  ceasing,  to  pray  and  not 
faint !  Do  we  stop  to  require  further  evidence 
aofainst  our  doubts  on  this  score  '\  Even  that  un- 
reasonable  demand  may  be  satisfied.     In  the  5th 


Prayer.  61 

and   Sth  chapters  of   Eevelations,  containing   the 
records  of  one  of  the  visions  Avherein  John  saw 
many  themes  of  the  church  on  earth  illustrated  by 
themes  of  the  church  above,  one  scene  is  portrayed 
where  the  throne  of  The  Most  High  was  set,  where 
those  four  living  creatures  and  four  and  twenty 
elders  whom  God  loved  best  stood  nearest  to  Him 
and  worshipped,  offering  from  golden  harps  in  one 
hand  the  songs  of  the  redeemed,  and  out  of  golden 
bowls     in    the     other    hand     the     sweet-odoured 
prayers  of  the  saints.     Rev.  v.  8  :  "  And  when  he 
had  taken  the  book,  the  four  living  creatures  and 
the  four  and  twenty  elders  fell  down   before  the 
Lamb,  having  each  one  a  harp,  and  golden  bowls 
full  of  incense,  which  are  the  prayers  of  the  saints." 
Eev.  viii.    3   and   4:  "And    another   angel   came 
and  stood  over  the  altar,  having  a  golden  censer; 
and  there  was  given  unto  him  much  incense,  that 
he  should  add  it  unto  the  prayers  of  all  the  saints 
upon  the  golden  altar  which  was  before  the  throne. 
And  the  smoke  of  the  incense,  with  the  prayers  of 
the  saints,  went  up  before  God  out  of  the  angeFs 
hand." 

So  may  we  be  persuaded  that  the  incense  most 
pleasing  and  delightful  to  Him  of  all  that  can  be 
offered  in  heaven  or  in  earth  are  the  prayers  of  all 
saints  ;  weak  as  they  may  be  in  expression,  poor  in 
subject-matter,  dictated  by  erring  or  foolish  motive, 
lacking  in  faith,  feeble  in  desire,  yet  they  are  pre- 
ciously cherished  and  gathered  in  those  golden  bowls 
for  God.  Around  the  throne  of  the  King  of  Kings 
there  may  be  many  shining  hosts  who,  with  sweet- 
toned  harps  and  sweetest  voices,  pour  forth  their 


62  Four  Bible  Studies. 

anthems  of  praise  and  love ;  yet  the  prayer  uttered 
in  trembling  whisper  by  the  lowliest  saint  of  earth 
goes  past  their  serried  ranks  to  have  instant  audience 
in  the  ear  of  Heavenly  Power,  not  one  feeble  tone 
of  it  muffled  by  the  resounding  chants  of  celestial 
choirs  ;  that  prayer  comes  in  all  its  freshness,  of- 
fered in  all  its  tenderness,  as  delightful  incense  to 
Him  who  "  will  look  to  him  that  is  poor  and  of 
a  contrite  spirit,  and  that  trembleth  at  His  word." 
The  coming  of  God's  kingdom  waits  upon 
prayer;  He  made  it  to  be  so  when  He  bid  us  pray, 
''  Thy  kingdom  come  "  ;  if  there  is  apparent  delay 
in  that  coming,  the  fault  is  ours,  not  His  ;  for  He 
is  not  slack  concerning  any  of  His  promises.  Our 
prayers  may  ascend  without  measure,  freely  chal- 
lenging His  ability  and  will  to  execute  them,  until, 
through  prayer  and  work,  the  earth  shall  be  full  of 
the  knowledge  of  the  Lord,  until  His  name  shall  be 
great  among  the  heathen,  and  from  every  place  be- 
tween the  rising  and  the  setting  sun  the  priceless 
incense  of  prayer,  so  loved  b}^  Him,  shall  rise  to  fill 
the  o^olden  bowls.  And  whether  the  fi:ladness  and 
triumph  of  His  coming  be  near  at  hand  or  very  far 
off,  may  we  all,  in  the  one  church  of  heaven  and 
earth,  whether  yet  in  the  battle  or  gone  to  our  rest, 
be  able  to  stand  up  boldly  and  in  good  confidence, 
and  not  be  ashamed  before  Him  at  His  coming, 
while  He  shall  then  make  of  Himself  the  solemn 
inquiry:  "  Do  I  find  faith  on  the  earth  ?  " 


FIDELITY. 

Luke  xyi.  1-13. 

The  lesson  of  the  parable,  according  to  the  inter- 
pretation generally  received,  is  said  to  be  contained 
in  tlie  9th  verse :  "  And  I  say  unto  you.  Make  to 
yourselves  friends  by  means  of  the  mammon  of 
unrighteousness;  that  when  it  shall  fail,  they  may 
receive  you  into  the  eternal  tabernacles."  The  ap- 
plication is,  that  the  possessors  of  money  or  wealth 
should  make  such  wise,  liberal,  and  beneficent  use 
of  their  means  as  will  commend  them  to  those  with 
w^hom  they  are  to  be  associated  in  the  life  here- 
after, Avhen  they  are  to  inhabit  the  "eternal  taber- 
nacles." The  best  disposition  for  our  riches  is  not 
to  hoard,  but  w^isely  to  spend  them  ;  not  to  lay 
them  up  on  earth  where  moth  and  thieves  may  de- 
stroy and  steal;  not  to  pull  down  old  barns  and 
build  new  for  an  increasing  store,  when  the  morrow 
may  not  find  our  souls  among  the  living.  Wealth 
is  harder  to  keep  than  to  gain,  for  it  is  ever  ready 
to  "  take  to  itself  wings  and  fly  away  as  the  eagle 
toward  heaven."  Give  out,  therefore,  of  your 
riches,  exercising  a  wise  beneficence ;  so  you  Avill 
gain  the  praise  and  solid  good-will  of  the  good,  the 
lovinof,  and  lovable  in  the  better  life  to  come.  Such 
is  the  lesson  conveyed  by  the  parable  according  to 
the  prevalent  exegesis. 

But  this  seems  to  be  but  a  small  outcome  from 


64  Four  Bible  Studies. 

the  great  amount  of  material  provided  in  the  eight 
preceding  verses.  The  acts  and  Avords  of  a  rich 
landlord,  of  a  dishonest  steward,  and  of  the  debtors 
conspiring  with  the  steward  to  cheat  the  landlord, 
all  are  said  to  work  out  the  sole  lesson,  "  Make  to 
yourselves  friends,"  etc.  Here  is  a  cumbrous  and 
useless  apparatus  provided,  as  it  would  seem,  for  a 
small  result;  according  to  the  received  interpreta- 
tion, the  record  of  the  steward's  unthrift  is  given 
in  order  that  men  might  learn  from  it  to  be  wise 
and  careful  in  regard  to  their  eternal  interests ; 
and  the  story  of  dishonesty  is  narrated  in  order 
that  "  sons  of  light "  may  know  how,  with  the 
mammon  of  unrighteousness,  to  make  fit  friends 
for  society  in  that  heavenly  kingdom  where  earth 
and  all  its  fashions  have  forever  passed  away.  It 
is'  all  seemingly  so  unnecessar}^,  this  array  of  land- 
lord, steward,  and  debtors,  to  teach  the  need  or 
desirability  of  securing  friends  for  companionship 
in  the  better  life ;  and  it  is  all  so  illogical  that  out 
of  the  unfaithfulness,  dishonest}^,  and  recklessness 
of  them  all  should  come  to  us  a  lesson  for  using:  our 
wealth  in  gaining  friends  to  "receive"  us  into  the 
sinless  and  glorified  state  of  the  redeemed. 

If  the  lesson  is  simply,  The  right  use  of  wealth, 
it  could  have  been  inculcated  with  much  less  pro- 
fusion of  material ;  what  need  to  put  a  steward  in 
the  story  at  all  ?  or  what  need  of  a  dishonest  one? 
why  not  have  simply  set  forth  the  rich  landlord  as 
himself  disposing  of  his  wealth  so  as  to  do  the  most 
good  with  it,,  as  the  rich  fool  is  set  forth  in  hoard- 
ing his,  and  thus  win  the  praise  and  esteem  of  the 
faithful  and  worthy  friends  whose  friendship  is  to 


Fidelity.  65 

be  eternal?  He  .might  have  been  presented  in  the 
parable  modelled  after  that  good  rich  man  Job, 
who  could  say  of  himself  and  of  the  days  of  his 
prosperit}^,  "  1  washed  my  steps  with  butter,  and 
the  rock  poured  me  out  rivers  of  oil."  "  I  delivered 
the  poor  that  cried,  and  the  fatherless  and  him 
that  had  none  to  help  him  ;  the  blessing  of  him 
that  was  ready  to  perish  came  upon  me,  and  I 
caused  the  widow's  heart  to  sing  for  joy."  "  I 
was  eyes  to  the  blind,  and  feet  was  I  to  the  lame. 
I  was  a  father  to  the  poor,  and  the  cause  which  I 
knew  not  I  searched  out."  Surelv,  the  lesson 
from  a  parable  so  constructed  would  come  with  far 
greater  directness  and  force  through  the  acts  of  an 
honest  and  benevolent  Dives,  than  it  could  by  this 
roundabout  course  through  the  lying  and  theft  of 
a  faithless  servant.  There  is  too  much  machinery 
in  the  parable  for  such  a  simple  result ;  if  the 
builder  of  a  marine  engine,  in  place  of  coupling  the 
crank-rods  of  the  driving  pistons  directly  to  the 
shaft  (as  is  the  universal  custom),  were  to  connect 
them  to  a  series  of  co^:- wheels  arrano^ed  between 
the  crank-rod  and  the  shaft,  every  one  would  con- 
demn him  for  the  employment  of  material  which 
served  no  good  use,  but  was  a  needless  encumbrance 
upon  the  motive  power.  So,  by  the  current  and  in- 
sufficient exegesis  of  this  parable,  there  are  made 
to  appear  more  "  working  parts  "  than  are  required 
for  the  sino^le  lesson  fi:iven. 

It   was  a  besetting  weakness  in  the  schools  of 
Jewish   divines  and  expositors    to  elaborate  each 
insignificant  item  of  a  precept  or  pai'able,  to  exag- 
gerate in  many  parts  by  an  overstrained  and  hypo- 
5 


66  li'our  Bible  Studies. 

thetical  rendering  of  terms ;  but  the  very  opposite 
of  this  is  to  be  said  regarding  the  prevalent  inter- 
pretation of  this  parable.  Here  is  much  matter  left 
totally  unused  ;-  the  steward  and  the  debtors  are 
not,  as  we  may  believe,  necessary  actors,  and  their 
characters  are  most  inappropriate  for  the  lesson 
said  to  be  taught.  While,  therefore,  we  may  be 
certain  that  the  Divine  Teacher  brought  in  these 
characters  and  made  them  perform  these  acts  for  a 
good,  moral  purpose  and  to  teach  a  thorough  moral 
lesson,  we  may  be  equally  certain  that  He  did  not 
set  them  forth  as  offering  the  least  semblance  of  a 
model  for  imitation  in  our  own  spiritual  life  and 
experience.  We  would  now  propose  a  better 
exegesis. 

The  parable  is  to  be  regarded  as  in  three  parts  : 
the  main  part  being  the  verses  1-7  inclusive,  and 
the  lesson  of  these  seven  is  contained  in  verses  10, 
11,  and  12 ;  the  secondary  part  is  in  verse  8,  with 
its  lesson  in  verse  9  ;  while  another  and  third  part 
is  the  summing  up  and  conclusion  of  all  in  verse  13. 
The  secondary  portion  will  be  first  treated  of,  and 
verses  8  and  9  which  compose  it  read  thus :  "  And 
his  lord  commended  the  unrighteous  steward  be- 
cause he  had  done  wisely ;  for  the  sons  of  this 
world  are  for  their  own  generation  wiser  than  the 
sons  of  the  light.  And  I  say  unto  you.  Make  to 
yourselves  friends  by  means  of  the  mammon  of 
unrighteousness ;  that,  when  it  shall  fail,  they  may 
receive  you  into  the  eternal  tabernacles."  It  has 
alread}^  been  seen  what,  under  the  ruling  exegesis, 
has  been  accepted  as  the  teaching  of  this  latter,  the 
9th  verse,  but  one  is  struck  at  once  with  the  badly 


Fidelity.  6.7 

disjointed  relations  such  a  lesson  bears  toward  all 
the  other  teachings  having  reference  to  eschatol- 
ogy  in  the  E^ew  Testament.  That  kingdom  of  our 
Redeemer  Avhicli  is  altogether  spiritual  in  its  course 
from  the  fir'st  dawn  of  heavenly  life  in  the  soul 
until  its  final  consummation  and  triumph  in  the 
peace  and  sinlessness  of  heaven,  that  kingdom,  if 
we  read  this  interpretation  aright,  may  yet,  in  a 
manner,  be  purchased  by  our  use  of  the  money  we 
possess.  We  are  counselled  to  regard  this  verse  as 
containing  a  command  upon  us  to  secure  by  our 
money  these  friends  who  are  to  receive  us  on  our 
arrival  in  the  better  world.  But  who  are  the 
"  friends  "  ?  If  they  have  power  to  receive,  they 
then  must  have  impliedly  the  power  to  reject  us ; 
and,  in  the  former  case,  our  salvation  depends  not 
upon  a  Saviour,  but  upon  those  whom  we  have  in 
this  manner  made  our  friends. 

Attention  is  also  called  to  the  usage  of  the  Greek 
word  dt^GDvrai^  a  deponent  verb  translated  *'  re- 
ceive." It  is  believed  that  careful  study  of  the 
Greek  will  show  that  whenever  in  the  Xew  Testa- 
ment it  is  applied  to  persons,  there  is  always  im- 
plied, either  by  the  context  or  b}^  the  character  or 
function  of  the  person  receiving,  his  privilege  of 
choice^  to  receive  or  not  to  receive;  familiar  in- 
stances are  such  as  :  "  He  that  receiveth  you  re- 
ceiveth  me,  and  he  that  receiveth  me  receiveth  him 
that  sent  me  "  ;  "  And  whosoever  shall  not  receive 
you  nor  hear  your  Avords,"  etc. ;  as  Jesus  once 
came  to  a  village  of  the  Samaritans,  "  they  received 
him  not,  because  his  face  was  as  though  he  were 
going  to  Jerusalem."      According   to  this  usage, 


6§  Four  Bible  Studies. 

therefore,  in  every  other  place  where  applied  to 
persons,  the  inference  cannot  fairly  be  avoided 
that  the  "  friends "  in  this  parable  are  endowed 
with  choice,  and  thus  with  power  not  to  receive  as 
well  as  receive  into  the  "  eternal  tabernacles "  ; 
and  no  further  word  is  needed  here  to  show  the 
absurdity  as  w^ell  as  the  impiety  of  such  a  doctrine 
so  opposed  to  our  teaching  of  the  Christian  belief 
regarding  the  future  life.  AkxoiAai  is,  in  New 
Testament  usage,  strongly  contrasted  with  Aa^- 
(SavGDy  the  former  is  always  conditional  in  mean- 
ing, and  is  far  from  conveying  any  idea  of  a  defined 
and  determinative  process  or  of  a  fixed,  unalterable 
conclusion  in  the  mind  of  the  agent  of  whom  or  of 
whose  acts  the  verb  may  be  used.  But  Aapi^ayoo, 
on  the  other  hand,  is  employed  in  all  cases  where 
an  ordered  and  positive  action  is  taken  as  the  re- 
sult of  mature  experience  or  settled  counsel.  But, 
again,  of  what  sort  are  the  friends  ?  such  as  we 
might  choose,  from  all  we  know,  to  make  them 
friendly  by  the  use  of  money  ?  Certainly,  under 
any  interpretative  method,  we  must  reject  the  idea 
of  anything  in  the  nature  of  personal  purchase  or 
bribery  being  intended.  The  thought  is,  that  the 
"  mammon  "  must  be  used  in  such  unselfish,  such 
wisely  good  and  beneficent  ways  as  that  we  shall 
gain  the  approval  and  high  praise  of  all  those  un- 
selfish, good,  and  benevolent  who  are  to  meet  us 
in  the  blessed  hereafter ;  so  say  the  commentators 
generally  accepted  as  authorities  on  the  parables. 
But  there  arise  great  difficulties  here.  If  the 
friends  are  to  receive  us,  they  are  to  go  before  us, 
and  be  on  hand  at  our  coming  ;  are  we  therefore  to 


Fidelity.  69 

make  friends  only  of  those  advanced  in  years,  and  . 
who  generally  would  be  most  likely  to  await  us    ^'^[^''^ 
there?    How  can  we  help  making  friends  among    ~    J^ 
the  young  as  well  as  the  old  ?  nay,  how  avoid  mak-    /^^  tct:e 
ino-  friends  even  among  bad  men  and  hardened  sin- 
ners ?     It  is  easily  conceivable  that  a  faithful  Chris- 
tian, faithfully  administering   the  monetary  trust 
committed  to  him  as  the  steward  of  his  Lord,  may 
win  friends  even  among  the  vicious,  the  worldly, 
the  abandoned  in  sin  ;  the  benevolent  are  numerous 
in  our  day  ;  the  Peabodys,  Dodges,  and  Coopers  are 
representatives  of  an    increasing   class,  and   their 
"  friends  "  are  to  be  reckoned  by  the  thousands  in 
every  grade  and  station  of  life  ;  even  the  degraded 
and  basest  have  no  other  than  words  of  praise  for  the 
careful  and  liberal  benefactions  made  by  such  men. 
And  we  may  not  deny  that  goodness,  apart  from 
wealth,  often  commands  the  respect  and  commenda- 
tion of  the  wicked ;  the  homage  that  vice  pays  to 
virtue  is  often  given  in  the  warm  approval  and 
high  praise  of  those  who  have  enough  of  moral 
judgment  to  appreciate  the  holy  beauty  of  virtu- 
ous actions,  but  not  enough  of  moral  power  or  will 
to  imitate  them.     Surely,  no  one  could  wish  to  be 
"received"  by  that  class  of  friends  hereafter,  for 
that  reception  must  be  only  in  eternal  tabernacles 
suited  to  the  character  of  their  wicked  occupants 
and  utterly  unsuited  to  the  children  of  light.     But 
if  it  be  said  that  we  may  make  friends  only  among 
the  good,  those  whom  we  know  as  certain  to  be  in 
the  better  and  holier  world,  then  how  are  we  to 
know  them  %   Their  inner  life  is  not  open  to  us  ;  only 
the  Lord  knoweth  them  that  are  His ;  the  kingdom 


70  Four  Bible  Studies, 

of  God  Cometh  not  with  observation  ;  we  are  not 
omniscient,  as  we  should  be  if  we  can  say  of  this  or 
that  one,  He  must  be  made  our  friend,  because  he 
certainly  is  to  await  us  in  the  eternal  tabernacles  of 
the  good  and  hol}^.  Yet  one  of  the  ablest  of  our 
living  divines  would  persuade  us  of  our  duty  and 
care  specially  to  select  our  friends  from  among  the 
good  only,  and  cultivate  their  friendship  so  dili- 
gently by  the  use  of  our  money  that  they  shall  "  re- 
ceive "  us  hereafter.  The  logic  of  this  reasoning  is 
all  incurably  lame  in  its  progress,  and  phenomenally 
weak  in  outcome.  Our  Lord  could  not  have  in- 
tended so  impotent  a  conclusion  for  this  parable, 
nor  would  He  have  brought  all  the  characters  into 
it  and  filled  it  so  full  of  action,  only  to  have  drawn 
from  it  teaching  so  vague  and  dilute  in  quality. 

Having  thus  noted  the  objections  to  the  current 
and  defective  explanation  of  this  passage,  let  us 
turn  to  what  is  believed  to  be  a  better  and  sound 
solution.  These  8th  and  9th  verses  offer  only  a 
secondary  or  side  lesson.  After  the  words  of  the 
7th  verse  have  been  spoken  our  Teacher  pauses 
before  giving  the  application  contained  in  the  10th, 
11th,  and  12th  verses,  and  fixing  the  attention  of 
His  hearers  upon  the  last  official  act  of  the  steward, 
makes  it  the  occasion  for  a  lesson  to  the  sons  of 
light,  prefacing  it  with  the  expression,  "  And  I  say 
unto  you."  There  is  no  particular  stress  to  be  laid 
on  these  words  here ;  there  is  no  special  emphasis 
to  be  attached  to  them,  as  there  should  be  if  pre- 
ceded by  the  "  Yerily,  verily "  He  used  at  other 
times ;  but  He  utters  this  expression  to  call  off 
attention  for  the  moment  from  the  steward,  the 


Fidelity.  71 

landlord,  the  debtors,  and  the  sons  of  this  world, 
and  fix  the  thoughts  of  His  hearers  upon  this  les- 
son to  be  drawn  from  a  minor  subject,  aside  from 
the  main  topic,  but  naturally  suggested  by  it.  It 
was  as  if  He  had  said  in  the  terms  familiar  to  us 
in  modern  speech,  "  By  the  way,  Avhile  on  this 
subject,  and  before  applying  my  parable,  let  me 
say  to  you,  sons  of  light,  be  like  sons  of  this  world 
in  making  friends  by  means  of  the  mammon  of 
unrighteousness;  for  as  sons  of  light  you  can 
wisely  do  with  3^our  own  in  an  honest  way  what 
the  sons  of  this  world  do  with  what  is  not  their 
own  in  a  dishonest  and  selfish  way."  The  teaching 
of  these  two  verses  has  therefore  reference  to  the 
making  of  friends  in  and  for  this  life  only,  and  not 
with  regard  to  the  future  life. 

One  beneficent  result  of  the  Universalist  contro- 
versy has  been  to  demonstrate  it  as  true  that  the 
validit}^  of  the  doctrine  of  endless  punishment  is 
not  to  be  established  by  the  meaning  of  one  cer- 
tain word  in  our  Greek  Testament.  The  word 
aic^vioz  does  in  the  greater  number  of  its  uses,  yet 
does  not  always  and  everywhere,  convey  the  idea 
of  limitless  duration ;  and  whether  it  shall  have 
the  meaning  '-eternal"  or  "everlasting,"  or  shall 
mean  a  period  limited  and  less  than  these  words 
implv,  depends  entirely  upon  the  connection  in 
which  it  is  used.  There  are  many  passages  in  the 
New  Testament  establishing  the  possibility  or  cer- 
tainty of  eternal  loss  for  a  human  soul  just  as 
conclusively  as  those  passages  in  which  the  Greek 
aioDvios  is  used,  and  they  might  be  quoted  here 
were  it  not  aside  from  our  present  purpose.     That 


72  Four  Bible  Studies. 

word,  as  used  here,  does  not  signify  endless  dura- 
tion ;  for  in  the  connection  with  other  words  of 
the  sentence  it  has  simply  its  original  and  primary 
meaning,  "  Life-Long."  ^  In  primitive  usage  it 
meant  "  pertaining  to  the  history  of  a  tribe  during 
its  successive  generations  " ;  it  implied  a  deter- 
minate measure  of  existence  for  either  an  indi- 
vidual or  a  generation,  which  might  have  been 
extended,  but  not  limitless.  In  our  Saviour's  day 
it  was  used  in  both  its  limited  and  unlimited  sense, 
and  we  are  therefore  at  liberty  to  construct  a  lesson 
from  His  teaching  in  this  instance  upon  either 
meaning  of  the  word ;  but  as  it  has  been  shown 
impossible  for  reference  to  a  future  life  to  be  here 

*  This  paper  was  written  and  completed  early  in  the  winter 
of  1895-6.  In  the  Noj'th  American  Jieriew  for  April,  1896,  the 
following  passage  appears  in  the  course  of  a  long  and  ably 
written  article  by  Mr.  Gladstone  : 

We  first  become  acquainted  not  with  aionios,  but  with  aion, 
so  far  back  as  in  Homer.  It  is  used  eight  times  iu  the  "  Iliad  " 
and  five  in  the  "Odyssey"  ;  most  commonly,  it  is  the  simple 
equivalent  of  the  Latin  "  vita"  and  the  English  "life,"  rela- 
tive to  a  man.  Occasionally,  it  means  the  heart  or  flower  of 
life,  especially  in  the  address  of  Andromache  to  the  dead 
Hector  :  avep,  arc  dvoovoi  reoi  ayKeoo.  Here  the  effect  of 
aioDvo<i  is  that  Hector  (who  was  undoubtedly  in  his  prime)  is 
cut  away  not  only  from  life,  but  from  the  flower  of  life.  The 
clause  in  Psalm  cii.  22,  comes  near  it — "  Take  me  not  away  in 
the  midst  of  my  days." 

We  come  next  in  classical  Greek  to  the  adjective  aionios. 
But  the  Homeric  use  of  the  word  shows  vividly  that  the  word  is 
essentially  relative  rather  than  absolute.  It  is  the  aion  of 
somebody  or  something  ;  not  abstract,  not  an  exact  counter- 
part of /wo  rs  or  of  the  English  "death."  With  lapse  of  time 
comes  a  modification  of  the  sense  ;  and  the  meanings  are  given 
for  it,  lasting  for  an  age,  perpetual,  everlasting,  eternal.     In 


Fidelity.  ^^ 

intended,  it  follows  that  the  precept  of  Jesus  refers 
solely  to  the  making  of  friends  during  and  for  our 
present  earthly  life. 

In  fact,  the  word  " eternal"  is  often  used  at  this 
present  time  and  in  our  English  forms  of  speech 
with  limited  and  restricted  meaning.  We  speak 
(for  illustration)  of  the  eternal  mountains  and  the 
everlasting  hills ;  yet  we  know  it  as  a  literal  fact 
that  they  are  not  to  endlessly  endure,  smce  m 
belief  of  the  Divine  Word  we  know  that  the  earth 
is  one  day  to  be  wrapped  up  and  destroyed  in 
universal  fire.  How  easily  and  suddenly  that 
great  day  of  God  may  be  brought  on  can  be  very 
readily  perceived  when  we  understand  a  certam 

the  Nomoi  of  Plato,  the  Maker  forms  the  human  being  to  be 
dvoSXeBpov  .     .     dXX  ovHaic6yioy,i>vxr]VHai6oopia, 

uaQdrtsp  6t  Hard  v6uov  ovrsi  Bsot,  where  the  distinctions 
seem  to  be  taken  between  survival  and  immortality  ;  our  soul 
survives  the  death  we  know  of,  but  death  never  comes  at  all  to 
the  acknowledged  gods,  who  have  an  indefectible  existence. 
But  I  have  not  seen  in  classical  Greek  any  use  of  either  the 
adjective  or  the  substantive  for  eternity  in  the  abstract,  if  we 
take  the  distinction  between  an  expanse  of  time,  to  which  no 
particular  limit  is  attached,  and  a  substantive  eternity,  con- 
sisting of  time  ceaselessly  prolonged.     Mr.  De  Quincey.  who 
was  both  scholar  and  philosopher,  has  written  a  paper  on  this 
word,  and  he  says,  apparently  with  much  truth  :  "The  exact 
amount  of  the  duration  expressed  by  our  aeon  depends  alto- 
gether upon  the  particular  subject  which  yields  the  aeon.       It 
is  -the  duration  or  cycle  of  existence  which  belongs  to  any 
object         .     .     in  right  of  its  genus."     (Hogg's  "  De  Quincey 
and  His  Friends,"  pp.  308,  312.)    An  approximate  rendering  of 
the  word  aiomos  is  perhaps  to  be  found  in  "  life-long.       It  this 
be  the  sense  of  Scripture,  then  the  phrase  as  used  in  the  parable 
of  Matthew  xxv.  simply  throws  us  back  upon  the  question- 
What  is  the  ordained  life  of  the  soul  ? 


^74  Four  Bible  Studies. 

fact  well  established  as  such  in  the  views  of  our 
advanced  scientists.  The  element  of  oxygen,  sup- 
porter of  all  forms  of  life,  is  also  the  producer  and 
supporter  of  lire,  that  great  enemy  of  all  earthly 
life;  and  it  is  the  one  enormously  abundant  and 
pervading  element  of  earth  and  air.  With  but  very 
few  exceptions,  and  in  proportions  varying  with 
each,  it  enters  into  every  constituent  of  this  globe ; 
it  is  present  in  all  minerals,  earths,  waters,  in 
every  form  of  animal  and  vegetable  life ;  it  com- 
bines with  every  other  element  in  ratios  undeviat- 
ing  with  each  particular  one.  Yet,  to  say  that 
these  proportions  are  regulated  by  natural  laws 
is  only  the  same  as  to  say  that  they  are  so  fixed 
by  the  power  of  Him  at  whose  fiat  those  laws 
were  at  first  ordained,  and  "  without  Whom  was 
not  anything  made  that  was  made "  ;  and  they 
continue  in  force  only  by  authority  of  the  same 
divine  Son  of  God,  Who  is  ever  "  upholding  all 
things  by  the  word  of  His  power."  Let  that 
divine  upholding  cease  for  an  instant,  and,  by  a 
new  fiat  from  our  Enthroned  Saviour,  let  new  pro- 
portions be  given  for  the  combination  of  oxygen 
with  all  other  substances,  and,  in  most  cases,  but 
little  in  excess  of  those  ratios  now  in  force,  and  we 
can  see  how  quickly  the  great  cataclysm  would 
come,  "  when  the  heavens  being  on  fire  shall  be 
dissolved,  and  the  elements  shall  melt  with  fervent 
heat,  and  the  earth  and  the  works  that  are  therein 
shall  be  burned  up."  Then  would  continents,  seas, 
forests,  mountains,  and  rivers  be  no  more ;  for 
under  this  renovation  by  fire  we,  the  beneficiaries 
of  His  promises,  would  "  look  for  new  heavens  and 


Fidelity.  75 

new  earth,  a  dwelling-place  for  righteousness." 
The  word  "eternal''  had  often  a  limited  mean- 
ing also  in  the  Hebrew  tongue.  The  Psalmist 
sings  of  the  heavens  and  the  earth,  that  "  the  Lord 
hath  made  them  fast  for  ever  and  ever,  and  hath 
given  them  a  decree  which  shall  not  pass  " ;  yet 
other  passages  in  the  Psalms  and  Prophets  declare 
that  the  mountains  shall  depart  and  the  hills  be 
removed,  and  that  the  earth  and  heavens  shall 
wax  old  and  be  changed  as  a  vesture,  while  God 
shall  be  the  same  and  His  years  shall  have  no  end. 
Thus  do  we  of  this  day  use  the  word  "  eternal "  in 
a  figurative  rather  than  in  its  literal  sense,  and  in 
like  manner  it  was  here  employed  by  our  Lord  to 
designate  the  tabernacles,  not  as  the  ever-enduring 
and  transmundane  abodes  of  the  righteous,  but  as 
the  homes  and  dwelling-places  of  this  earth. 

There  is  also  a  peculiar  fitness  in  the  use  of 
the  term  aic^vioz  as  applied  to  the  aKr/vaiy  this 
will  appear  from  the  short  study  now  to  be  made 
of  this  latter  term,  together  with  ohiov?,  in  the 
4th  verse.  Oiho?^  while  often  applied  to  mean 
a  constructed  dwelling,  yet  does  in  its  most  numer- 
ous applications  denote  the  members  of  a  house- 
hold collectively,  and  that  whether  they  are  of  one 
generation  or  several.  Joseph  went  with  Mary  to 
Bethlehem  to  be  taxed  because  he  was  of  the 
oluo?  and  lineage  of  David  (Luke  ii.  4).  Oiuia 
has  reference,  in  all  but  one  of  its  uses  in  the  New 
Testament,  to  the  material  construction  serving  as 
an  abode  for  the  several  occupants  constituting  the 
oijwG.  The  steward,  therefore,  in  anticipation  of 
the  results  of  what  he  was  about  to  do,  had  it  in  view 


76  Four  Bible  Studies. 

to  be  received  into  the  oIkov?^  rather  than  into  the 
oiKias  ^  that  is,  he  would  gain  the  cordial  good- 
will of  those  in  authority  over  the  dwellings,  know- 
ing that  then  entertainment  must  necessarily  fol- 
low and  be  secured  to  him,  in  common  with  all 
other  inmates  of  the  ohioz.  Thus  the  steward,  a 
son  of  this  world,  dealing  with  the  debtors,  also 
sons  of  this  world,  and  with  no  thought  other  than 
the  sordid  one  of  securing  himself  during  this  life 
against  beggary  and  starvation,  employs  the  term 
in  ordinary  use,  ohtovz,  to  indicate  the  full  extent 
to  which  his  expectations  of  a  comfortable  and 
easy  future  have  reached.  But  in  contrast  to 
these  sons  of  this  world,  when  we  come  to  the 
9th  verse,  our  Lord  speaks  not  of  omovz^  but 
of  (jjir]va^,  a  Avord  indicating  originally  booths 
or  temporary  shelters  of  boughs ;  then  it  was  ap- 
plied to  tents  or  tabernacles,  but  these  were  also 
of  a  movable  character.  Peter  on  the  Mount  of 
Transfiguration  proposed  to  build  three  tabernacles 
there,  something  easily  and  quickly  done  with 
branches  from  the  forests  near  at  hand.  In  the 
arrangements  of  the  Attic  theatre  the  word  (jHjjyt] 
originally  denoted  the  booth  to  which  the  actor 
retired  between  his  performances  ;  afterward  it  was 
applied  at  successive  periods  to  (1)  the  stage  build- 
ings as  a  whole,  (2)  the  wall  at  the  back  of  the 
stage,  (3)  the  decoration  or  painted  scenery  in 
front  of  the  back  wall,  (4)  the  stage,  and  (5)  the 
theatre  in  a  general  sense ;  but  in  the  first  century 
of  the  Christian  era  it  had  not  received  any  of 
these  five  latter  applications. 

Our  Lord  therefore  could  have  used  the  word 


Fidelity.  77 

strictly  and  only  in  its  original  meaning,  and  very 
appropriately  too,  for  He  was  not  speaking  to  sons 
of  this  world,  but  to  the  sons  of  light ;  and  for 
these  latter  no  habitation  of  this  world  should  ever 
be  aught  more  than  a  (Surivj],  never  an  oinoz. 
Having  here  no  continuing  citv,  but  seeking  one 
to  come,  their  earthly  dwelling-place,  however  sub- 
stantially constructed,  must  be  for  them  only  a 
ffxi]y7].  The  only  oiuo^  of  enduring  value  or  per- 
manence was  that  of  His  Heavenly  Father,  in 
which  were  the  mansions  (ijoya?:  from  i^iarco)  that 
He  would  prepare,  and  which  would  remain  theirs 
forever.  In  the  light  of  this  use  of  the  word 
(J7i7]va<;  it  is  seen  how  appropriately  the  adjective 
aiGDviov?  is  prefixed,  not  as  having  the  meaning 
"  eternal,"  but  as  simply  derived  from  and  of 
cognate  signification  with  the  noun  aioovo^  in  the 
8th  verse.  It  is  in  speaking  of  alooi'Ob  rovrov^ 
of  this  world,  that  the  sons  of  light  are  to  regard 
the  aioDviov?  (Tiajvag^  the  life-long,  perishable, 
worldly  tabernacles,  as  their  only  fit  and  fleeting 
habitations.  The}^  have  no  oijwg  here  other  than 
the  oiHoi  of  this  perishing  ffH?^vr/y  and  when  that 
shall  be  dissolved  they  are  to  have  an  oucodojLnj 
of  God,  an  oixia  not  made  with  hands  (2  Cor.  v.  i.). 
Thus  did  this  topical  use  of  aiaoviovg  easily  suggest 
itself  to  our  Divine  Teacher  as  naturally  following 
upon  the  use  of  aiajvog^  both  noun  and  adjective 
having  the  same  reference.  Other  cases  occur 
where  our  Lord  used  a  word  cognate  in  meaning 
as  well  as  in  form  with  one  He  had  just  before 
uttered,  thus :  "  Thou  art  7thpo<^j  and  upon  this 
Tterpa  I  will  build  my  church." 


78  Four  Bible  Studies, 

In  this  view  a  simple  solution  is  given  of  the 
parable,  and  a  plain  application  of  this  secondar}^ 
lesson.  We  are  so  to  use  all  advanta^-es  afforded 
us  by  the  mammon  of  unrighteousness  in  every 
good  way,  for  every  wise  and  righteous  end,  that, 
during  our  time  of  prosperity  sucli  friends  shall  be 
made  as  shall  be  in  sympathy  with  our  good  acts, 
our  good  character,  our  earnest  purpose  to  glorify 
the  Lord  whose  stewards  Ave  are ;  thus,  when  our 
riches  take  to  themselves  wings  and  fly  away,  there 
will  be  friends  remaining  gladly  willing  to  care  for 
and  "  receive  "  us  into  their  houses.  What  the  cor- 
rupt and  dishonest  steward,  a  son  of  this  world, 
did  for  himself  in  a  wretchedly  dishonest  way,  we, 
the  sons  of  light,  walking  and  doing  always  as  sons 
of  light,  are  to  do  with  pure  hearts  in  an  honest 
way  and  with  no  thought  of  self  and  with  no  sel- 
fish purpose.  That  divine  altruism  which  leads  us 
ever  to  "  look  not  every  man  on  his  own  thiuo-s, 
but  every  man  also  on  the  things  of  others,"  and 
is  itself  a  faithful  reflection  of  the  Divine  Love, 
will  soon  win  its  wa}^  to  appreciative  hearts  of  the 
unselfish  and  good,  and  so  their  friendship  is  sure 
to  be  ours  in  the  time  of  adversity.  This  is  a  pre- 
cept spoken,  like  some  others  by  our  Lord,  for  our 
profit  in  a  material  sense,  and  to  serve  for  our 
advantage  in  this  earthly  life  ;  it  recalls  one  similar, 
spoken  in  the  Sermon  on  the  Plain  :  "  Give,  and 
it  shall  be  given  unto  you ;  good  measure,  pressed 
down,  shaken  together,  running  over,  shall  they 
give  into  your  bosom.  For  with  what  measure  ye 
mete  it  shall  be  measured  to  you  again."  The 
precept    is    general,    not    special,    in   application. 


Fidelity.  79 

"Give"  is  a  general  command,  and  the  return  is 
also  to  be  general ;  it  shall  be  given  you.  Gener- 
ous conduct  and  a  gracious  manner  of  life  ^yill  win 
men  without  self-seeking  on  our  part.  ''What  can 
I  do  for  you?  -'  is  the  question  very  commonly  and 
not  unmeaningly  heard  in  our  day  Avhen  two  friends 
meet,  each  appreciating  the  other,  and  by  this  ques- 
tion offering  a  tribute  of  regard  for  his  honour- 
able and  generous  disposition.  Such  is  the  very 
practical  lesson  taught  in  these  two  verses  ;  friends 
thus  made  through  our  fidelity  in  the  use  of  mam- 
mon will  ''receive  "  us  wiUingly,  lovingly  into  their 
houses  when  that  mammon  shall  fail,  and  to  us 
the  experience  of  the  Psalmist  will  be  verified,  "  I 
have  been  young  and  now  am  old,  yet  never  saw  I 
the  righteous  forsaken  nor  his  seed  begging  their 
bread." 

The  solution  of  the  parable  is  thus  made  easy  by 
the  right  rendering  of  one  word  ;  for,  under  the 
supposed  necessitj^  of  attaching  a  meaning  of  un- 
limited duration  to  the  term  aic^vwi,  the  exeo-esis 
has  been  of  a  distorted,  unnatural,  and  inconclusive 
character ;  while,  with  the  interpretation  here  pro- 
posed, all  appearances  of  distortion  and  un sym- 
metry pass  away,  and  the  w^hole  parable,  with  its 
main  lesson,  its  secondary  or  side  lesson,  and  its 
concluding  application,  offers  a  didactic  result 
entirely  consistent,  harmonious,  and  natural.  It 
also  establishes  the  Greek  syntax  as  correct,  and 
the  forms  of  the  w^ords  orav  and  inXini)  and 
6iB,QDyraL  as  right  and  properly  expressive  of  the 
thought ;  the  mammon  we  possess  may  or  may  not 
fail  in  this  life,  as  the  adverb  and  the  verb  signify ; 


80  Four  Bible  Studies. 

and  the  friends  may  or  may  not  receive  us  into 
their  houses,  as  the  verb  dexofj.ai  by  usage  impUes, 
and  properly  makes  that  reception  conditional  as 
depending  upon  the  good-will  and  kindness  of 
friends. 

And  now  may  be  taken  up  the  main  lesson, 
which,  under  this  new  exposition  and  separate 
solution  of  the  8th  and  9th  verses,  becomes  quite 
clear  in  its  reasoning  and  results.  A  rich  landlord, 
a  negligent  and  eventually  dishonest  steward,  and 
debtors  conspiring  to  cheat  a  creditor,  these  are  the 
persons  in  the  parable ;  but  the  principal  interest 
centres  in  the  steward,  who  beo:ins  with  wasting; 
only,  but  ends  with  theft ;  for  that  is  the  right 
name  for  his  act,  even  if  technically  and  legally  he 
was  not  to  be  held  guilty,  and  did  not  actually 
appropriate  any  goods  for  himself ;  for  if  he  had 
stolen  anything,  the  course  was  at  once  open  to  his 
lord  to  recover  the  property,  prove  the  theft,  and 
then  deliver  him  to  the  officer  for  imprisonment  or 
crucifixion.  Thus  the  steward,  beo^innincr  with  a 
little  negligence  and  relaxing  just  a  little  in  the 
care  and  oversight  he  should  have  exercised  in  his 
office,  has  passed  from  each  degree  of  laxity  to  the 
next  worse  degree,  until  the  shameful  report  of 
him,  now  great  in  volume,  comes  to  the  ear  of  his 
lord.  Unprepared  for  the  sudden  arraignment, 
when  he  comes  to  consider  the  answer  to  his  own 
question,  "  What  shall  I  do  ? "  he  finds  that  his 
easy  life  of  negligence  and  unthrift  has  unfitted 
him  for  earning  an  honest  living ;  physically,  he  is 
from  weakness  of  body  unable  to  dig ;  morally,  he 
is  from  pride  unable  to  beg. 


Fidelity.  81 

He  had  dallied  along  that  indefinite  line  where 
a  little  cessation  from  watchfulness  and  care  had 
become  the  imperceptible  beginning  of  unfaith- 
fulness to  his  lord  ;  until  now,  confirmed  iu  habits 
of  sloth  and  carelessness,  he  can  find  no  way  to 
provide  against  want  for  the  future,  except  by  com- 
mitting some  essentially  dishonest  practices.  It  had 
therefore  become  easy  for  him,  and  would  but  little 
disturb  his  dulled  conscience,  to  conspire  in  defraud- 
ino^  the  lord  in  such  a  manner  as  to  lav  the  debtors 
under  obligation  to  him  for  the  immense  advan- 
tages they  would  gain  by  the  fi'aud  ;  for  he  was 
yet  steward,  w^ith  complete  control  of  aff'airs,  hav- 
ing the  same  autocratic  and  unassailable  rio^ht  over 
them  that  the  principal  himself  would  have.  And 
now  his  lord  having  come  at  a  time  when  he 
looked  not  for  him,  and  at  an  hour  when  he  was 
not  aware,  to  require  the  account  of  his  steward- 
ship, and  with  every  avenue  to  an  honest  living 
closed  against  him  through  his  own  fault,  his  only 
recourse  is  in  connivance  at  wholesale  plunder  for 
the  sake  of  obtaining  a  livelihood  ;  and  his  fate  at 
last  is  to  be  a  pensioner  by  sufferance  upon  the 
debtors  whom,  by  a  rascally  act  in  common  w^ith 
them,  he  has  benefited.  The  parable  deals  no  fur- 
ther with  these  debtors,  but  in  us  who  read  it  there 
arises  a  strong  curiosity  (supposing  this  had  been  a 
real  histor}^)  to  know  how  it  would  have  turned  out 
at  last  with  the  steward ;  whether  he  would  have 
continued  to  the  end  of  his  life  to  enjoy  the  fruits 
of  his  rascality,  or  whether  the  benefits  gained  by 
the  debtors  through  those  swindles,  having  become 
exhausted  (or  even  if  not  exliausted  during  the 
6 


82  Four  Bible  Studies. 

ste\Yarcrs  lifetime),  they  turned  him  out  in  the 
street  to  end  his  days  at  last  in  beggary.  Unprin- 
cipled men,  making  gain  by  such  sordid  methods,  are 
apt  to  figure  closely  and  act  with  just  as  little  honour 
tov^-  1  the  poor  tool  through  whom  they  received 
tl     gain  as  they  have  acted  toward  his  principal. 

There  was  no  long  interval  between  the  steward's 
"  What  shall  I  do  ? "  and  his  "  I  am  resolved  what 
to  do."  That  "  logic  of  events,"  w^hich  in  modern 
times  has  been  made  the  occasion  and  excuse  for 
many  unrighteous  acts  by  all  sorts  and  conditions 
of  men,  was  in  this  steward's  case  altogether  of 
convincing  and  resistless  force.  The  plea  made  by 
many  a  modern  thief  and  tramp,  "  A  man  must 
live,  and  the  world  owes  me  a  living,"  is  the  same 
in  effect  as  that  used  by  the  steward,  "  that  they 
may  receive  me  into  their  houses."  So  was  he  at 
the  last  unrighteous  in  much,  as  he  had  been  at  the 
first  unfaithful  in  the  least.  The  lesson  of  this 
main  part  of  the  parable  has  now  become  plain : 
Whoso  sets  his  heart  only  on  the  things  of  this  life, 
is  always  looking  out  for  self,  is  concerned  only 
about  having  a  good  and  easy  time ;  he  must,  in 
the  end,  turn  out  either  a  rascal  or  a  beggar  ;  the 
unselfish  prosper  because  they  make  friends  by 
constant  and  consistent  practice  of  unselfishness ; 
the  selfish  come  to  disgrace  or  want  because  by 
ungenerous  practices  they  have  alienated  and  re- 
pelled those  who  would  have  always  been  their 
friends,  and  in  time  of  adversity  their  helpers. 
Thus  is  selfishness  the  root  and  origin  of  unfaith- 
fulness, and  in  this  short  statement  may  be  com- 
prised the  whole  history  of  the  steward. 


Fidelity.  8.^ 

Kor  is  the  rich  landlord  a  very  admirable  char- 
acter.   True,  he  was  of  open  disposition  and  gener- 
ous ;  he  still  treated  the  steward  kindly  after  the 
evil  report  was  come,  gave  him  space  to  clear  him- 
self if  he  could,  and,  pending  that,  kept  him  -Hll  in 
office,  apparently  on  tlie  principle  that  he  ^       id 
be  held  as  innocent  until  properly  proved  to  be 
guilty  ;  yet  he  shows  himself  to  be  a  son  of  this 
world,  for  the  villainy  being  accomplished,  he  has 
no  word  of  regret   over  the  result;  chagrin  and 
anger  are  repressed,  and  in  sympathy  with  the  con- 
scienceless spirit  of  the  money-grabbing  sons  of  the 
world,  he  has  only  words  of  admiration  for  the  ex- 
ceeding acuteness  and  adroitness  of  the  rascal  who, 
in  betrayal  of  his  trust,  has  made  for  him  so  great 
a  loss.     We  can  imagine  the  rich  man  ending  his 
contemplation  of  the  case  by  repeating  to  himself 
a  phrase  closely  akin  to  that  idiotic  saying  so  com- 
mon in  this  day,  prominent  in  popular  literature 
and  of  frequent  use  in  the  conversation  of  reckless 
and  selfish  men,  "Nothing  succeeds  like  success." 

There  is  a  law  of  fidelity  in  the  kingdom  of 
God  ;  and  of  all  methods  for  testing  character  and 
showing  the  true  fibre  and  temper  of  a  man's  soul, 
his  acts  and  ways  in  regard  to  the  mammon  of  un- 
righteousness offer  the  most  keen  and  searching, 
foi'  the  temptations  are  of  the  strongest  and  most 
subtle  sort.  Consider  what  this  mammon  really  is 
in  the  ultimate  analysis.  If  it  had  been  made  a 
law  of  our  physical  and  moral  nature  that  no  man 
should  ever  be  able  to  earn  by  his  labour  more 
than  would  suffice  for  shelter,  clothes,  and  food, 
there  never  would   have  been  in  use  in  any  Ian- 


84  Four  Bible  Studies. 

guage  such  terms  as  wealth,  capital,  savings, 
treasure,  temples,  banks,  railroads  ;  for  the  objects 
represented  by  these  terms  would  have  no  exist- 
ence. But  the  law  being  that  a  man  can  produce 
more  than  he  can  consume,  the  result  is  that  little 
savings  soon  aggregate  into  wealth  or  capital,  and 
that,  by  another  natural  law,  this  capital  (which  is 
only  labour  in  a  concentrated  form)  is  gained  and 
controlled  by  the  more  intelligent,  careful,  and  pru- 
dent of  the  human  family.  All  the  riches  of  the 
world  now  existing,  wherever  and  in  whatever 
form — in  metal,  in  houses,  in  temples,  banks,  rail- 
roads, or  in  any  other  work  of  man — represent  sim- 
ply the  accumulated  and  undestroyed  labour,  both 
that  now  being  produced  and  that  inherited  from 
all  ages  of  the  world.  And  because  this  wealth 
can  be  so  easil}^,  and  therefore  has  been  so  gener- 
ally made  subservient  to  the  lusts  and  vices  of 
mankind,  and  has  been  almost  universally  per- 
verted from  the  good  and  beneficent  uses  it  should 
have  been  made  to  serve,  it  has  been  fitly  termed 
the  "  mammon  of  unrighteousness,"  and  the  faith- 
ful servant  of  God,  when  put  in  possession  of  that 
mammon,  will  never  lack  opportunity,  through  the 
temptations  to  evil  that  it  offers,  for  full  proof  of 
his  citizenship  in  that  kingdom  which  "  is  not  meat 
and  drink,  but  righteousness,  peace,  and  jov  in  the 
Holy  Ghost."  "  It  is  required  in  stewards  that  a 
man  be  found  faithful,"  and  if  he  has  not  been 
faithful  in  this  unrighteous  mammon  given  in 
his  charge  for  a  test  of  his  fidelity,  he  has  not 
become  fitted  for  any  higher  trust,  and  cannot  have 
the  care  or  use  of  those  spiritual  treasures  of  high- 


Fidelity.  85 

est  and  enduring  value  that  are  to  survive  the 
chance  and  change  of  this  life  of  probation. 

Then,  again,  this  mammon  is  "another's"  ;  it  is 
not  our  own  either  to  use  for  self,  to  waste,  to 
steal  or  suffer  others  to  steal.  In  the  false  jargon 
of  the  world  it  may  be  called  ours,  we  may  be  said 
to  be  worth  so  much,  the  lands  may  be  called  after 
our  own  names,  and  the  sons  of  men  give  us  the 
praise  for  gaining  all  these  things,  and  honour  us 
highly  w^iile  keeping  them  in  possession,  and  from 
such  we  should  never  get  even  a  hint  that  they  are 
not  wholly  ours  and  ours  forever.  But  for  us  thus 
to  do  and  live  as  owners,  and  not  as  stewards  for 
the  Divine  Owner,  would  constitute  a  betrayal  of 
our  trust,  and  demonstrate  that  we  are  unfit  to 
receive  "  that  which  is  our  own."  The  love,  de- 
votion, care,  and  solicitude  called  into  exercise 
through  patient  continuance  in  a  wise  administra- 
tion of  our  Master's  goods  are  just  the  qualities  to 
fit  us  rightly  to  administer  our  own,  both  in  this 
life  and  in  that  to  come ;  because  '^  our  own,"  in 
either  life,  comprises  none  of  the  tangible,  outward, 
material  objects  of  sense  or  sight,  but  spiritual  at- 
tainments gained  through  strivings  and  inner  ex- 
periences, through  victories  over  sin  and  self,  through 
the  spirit  of  honour,  honesty,  and  love  made  regnant 
in  our  lives  and  triumphant  by  the  grace  of  Him 
Who  hath  overcome  and  is  seated  upon  His  Father's 
throne. 

There  is  a  progression  of  the  argument  in  these 
10th,  11th,  and  12th  verses.  1st :  Fidelity  in  the 
least  can  alone  make  possible  fidelity  in  much,  and 
unfaithfulness  in  the  least  inevitably  brings  about 


86  Four  Bible  Studies. 

unfaithfulness  in  much.  2d  :  Fidehty  in  the  un- 
righteous mammon,  which  is  the  "least,"  renders 
one  fit  for  the  trust  of  that  which  is  "  true  "  riches. 
3d  :  All  that  we  have  here  is  not  ours,  but  another's  ; 
to  Him  Who  has  bought  us  with  a  price  belong  our 
every  earthly  possession,  our  every  spiritual  and 
mental  endowment.  In  this  day  of  probation  we 
are  actually  owners  of  nothing ;  all  we  are,  all  we 
have,  is  upon  trust ;  but  with  that  day  past,  we  enter 
into  the  enjo3^ment  of  "  our  own,"  acquired  through 
man}^  a  hard  spiritual  strife,  through  much  tribula- 
tion, watching,  and  prayer ;  called  no  more  to  be 
servants,  but  made  unto  our  God  kings  and  priests, 
we  will  enter  upon  that  incorruptible,  undefiled,  and 
unfading  inheritance  which,  through  the  precious 
strivings  of  God's  grace  within,  has  been  made  our 
own. 

And  now  to  take  up  the  13th  verse,  in  which  we 
have  a  general  summing  up  of  the  lessons  of  the 
parable.  "  IS'o  servant  can  serve  two  masters ;  for 
either  he  will  hate  the  one,  and  love  the  other;  or 
else  he  will  hold  to  one,  and  despise  the  other.  Ye 
cannot  serve  God  and  mammon."  The  effective 
element  in  all  true  service  is  love  toward  him 
whom  we  serve,  whether  that  one  be  a  divine  or  a 
human  person.  And  there  can  be  no  middle  nor 
any  indifferent  ground  between  love  and  hate. 
"He  \\\\\  love  or  he  will  hate"  is  the  truth  and 
rule  declared  by  our  Lord  concerning  all  servants 
rendering  service  of  every  sort,  whether  earthly  or 
heavenly.  Into  all  true  service,  therefore,  there 
enters  a  consideration  above  that  of  mere  com- 
pensation on  the  ground  of  justice,  right,  and  equity. 


Fidelity.  87 

We  are  not  to  serve  for  so  much,  and  make  the 
measure  of  our  service  rigid Ij^  conformable  to  the 
letter  of  the  contract,  careful  to  make  it  no  more 
than  what  the  measure  of  the  recompense  is  to  be ; 
we  are  to  go  beyond  justice  and  right,  and  render 
more  value  in  service  than  what  our  mere  "  pay  " 
amounts  to.  For  Avhat  is  love  in  its  outward  and 
practical  manifestation  but  the  continual  giving  of 
our  best  in  Avords  and  deeds  and  to  an  unbounded 
measure?  And  the  servant,  if  he  be  true,  must 
come  under  this  law  of  love.  Even  in  our  own 
day,  and  under  the  hard  conditions  established 
between  employers  and  employed,  this  law  must 
prevail ;  for  the  w^orkman  w^ho  will  not  exercise 
more  labour,  more  care  and  diligence  for  the  benefit 
of  his  employer  than  are  absolutely  required  under 
the  strict  letter  of  his  contract,  and  who  will  not 
show  a  disinterested  desire  that  his  w^ork  shall  be 
economically  and  thoroughly  done,  becomes  thereby 
disqualified  not  only  for  future  higher  service,  but 
even  for  use  in  his  present  position.  There  must 
be  fully  apparent  in  motive  and  act  that  conscien- 
tious concern  for  the  interests  of  his  employer 
which  has  its  origin  in  a  sentiment  closely  akin 
to  that  of  love;  there  should  be  a  self-forgetful 
absorption  in  his  w^ork  to  make  it  always  the  best 
possible,  and  altogether  without  reference  to  the 
rate  of  the  pay  he  is  to  receive. 

And,  on  the  other  hand,  the  employer  to  whom 
bis  employed  are  bound  by  no  other  tie  than  that 
of  exact  recompense  for  their  w^ork,  and  who  will 
not  endeavour  to  adjust  their  mutual  relations  upon 
some  better  lines  than  the  hard  ones  of  lowest  pay 


88  Four  Bible  Studies. 

practicable  for  best  work,  will  soon  find  that  he  is 
earning  the  costly  hate  rather  than  the  profitable 
love  of  his  men,  and  that  he  is  o^ettino^  no  true  ser- 
vice  in  the  work  thus  done,  not  "  upon  honour,"  but, 
as  it  were,  by  compulsion  ;  if,  in  the  hard  grind  of 
his  selfish  system,  he  takes  no  personal  interest  in 
the  man  who,  through  the  pure  motive  of  fidelity 
in  his  work,  will  give  more  value  in  labour  and  care 
than  are  agreed  upon,  then  such  an  employer  has 
mistaken  his  own  best  interests,  and  deserves  to 
fail  in  the  end.  But  he  should  always  treat  his 
men  upon  such  lines  of  appreciative  kindness  and 
fairness  as  to  deserve  that  love,  or  that  respect  and 
deference  next  to  love,  without  which,  in  all  the 
inequalities  divinely  ordained  for  this  present  life, 
no  service  can  be  rendered  or  received  with  mutual 
profit.  Thus,  with  all  the  light  and  wisdom  flood- 
ing our  twentieth  century  now  at  hand,  we  yet  live 
in  barbarian  darkness  when  that  living  is  founded 
upon  precepts  ^or  laws  of  purely  equal  service  and 
recompense,  upon  mere  justice  and  right,  and  not, 
rather,  upon  the  all-powerful  law  of  love.  God  is 
love,  and  His  power  is  exerted  omnipotently  in  all 
and  upon  all  from  that  one  impulse,  love.  Love 
upholds  the  universe  because  it  is  utterly  and  con- 
tinually patient  toward  all  the  wrong  done  in  it ; 
let,  for  a  moment,  any  rule  simply  of  justice  or 
equity  control,  and  the  guilty  earth  would  go  back 
to  chaos  and  destruction. 

The  real  cause  of  the  unfaithfulness  of  the  stew- 
ard was  in  his  lack  of  love  for  his  lord  ;  if  he  had 
loved  him,  then  a  natural  and  tender  consideration 
for  bis  master's  interests  would  have  stricken  him 


Fidelity.  RO 

with  grief  for  his  fault,  would  have  led  him  to 
frankly  confess  it,  to  implore  forgiveness,  and 
promise  an  honest  and  careful  service  for  the 
future.  But  the  hollowness  of  all  service  without 
love  is  fully  demonstrated  by  his  case,  in  that  he 
thinks  not  for  a  moment  of  such  a  course.  In  his 
''  What  shall  I  do  ? "  there  is  no  intimation  of  the 
least  sorrow  for  his  wrono;-doino^,  nor  the  sho:htest 
hint  of  any  purpose  to  change  his  manner  of  life 
or  manner  of  service.  With  that  desperate  hard- 
ness of  the  wicked  man  who  is  ever  impelled  still 
to  follow  a  further  wicked  course  bv  mere  force  of 
the  guilt  already  incurred,  he  declares,  "  I  am  re- 
solved what  to  do,"  and  thus  indicates  the  hard, 
unhesitating  selfishness  of  his  heart,  and  the  thinly- 
veiled  hate  he  really  entertained  tow^ard  his  lord. 
For,  if  any  love,  even  the  least,  had  been  in  him, 
it  would  seem  so  natural  to  us  that  he,  like  the 
servant  w^ho  owed  his  lord  ten  thousand  talents, 
should  fall  down  at  his  feet  and  cry,  "  Forgive  me, 
have  patience  w^ith  me,  tr}^  me  yet  a  little  further 
and  I  will  serve  thee  faithfully."  Thus  is  the 
grand  lesson  illustrated  to  us,  ^'  Ye  cannot  serve 
God  and  Mammon."  Love  for  God  is  the  essential 
condition  of  service  for  Him ;  we  cannot  serve  if 
we  do  not  love ;  and  if  we  love  we  cannot  help 
serving  Him.  On  the  other  hand,  if  w^e  love  mam- 
mon, we  must  serve  that  and  hate  God ;  there  is 
no  possible  alternative,  and  the  word  of  God,  which 
can  never  pass  awa}^,  hath  declared  it.  Thus  love 
and  service  mutually  prove  and  establish  each 
other ;  the  golden  thread  of  this  doctrine  can  be 
easily  traced  through  the  web  and  woof  woven  by 


90  Four  Bible  Studies. 

many  writers.  Paul  writes :  "  Faith  worketh  by 
love "  ;  James  writes :  "  A  man  may  say,  Thou 
hast  faith  and  I  have  works ;  show  me  thy  faith 
apart  from  thy  works,  and  I  by  my  works  will 
show  thee  my  faith."  Faith  and  love  are  one; 
where  one  is  the  other  must  be,  and  true  service  is 
the  outcome  of  both  or  either. 

Then  why,  0  Blessed  Jesus  Christ, 

Should  I  not  love  Thee  well, 
Not  for  the  hope  of  winning  Heaven, 

Nor  of  escaping  hell  ? 
Not  with  the  hope  of  gaining  aught, 

Nor  seeking  a  reward, 
But  as  Thyself  hast  loved  me, 

0  ever-loving  Lord  ! 

By  this  new  exegesis  it  is  believed  there  is  ob- 
tained a  most  natural  solution  of  this  parable  ;  there 
are  no  superfluous  persons  in  the  drama,  and  there 
is  no  unnecessary  action  by  any  of  them  ;  there  is 
nothing  brought  in  not  needed  for  illustration  of 
the  lessons  intended  to  be  taught ;  and  those  are 
clear,  of  high  spiritual  import,  and  in  perfect  har- 
mony with  all  other  teachings  of  our  Lord. 


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